Bird in Hand
by Murasaki Umeboshi
Summary: Exiled by their deeds in the previous era, Saitou Hajime and Takagi Tokio find themselves warworn and living under the same roof, just trying to scrape by in life. Against their wills, they catch each other's eyes. Will fate finally be kind to them?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me. This story is the tale of Saitou Hajime and his wife Takagi Tokio. I did a fair amount of research where I could, but with any work of fiction, there will be deviations from historical accuracy. There's not much relation between the people that commonly appear in the RuroK series, except for Saitou-san. If you note major historical inaccuracies, or anything like that, or problems with names and whatnot, please let me know- politely. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy. Please give me your comments and constructive criticism! Murasaki

June of 1870 (Meiji 3)

Kurasawa Residence, Goko, Tonami

Takagi Tokio awoke to another day of heavy rains, bleak grey skies, and empty sadness resting inside of her. Although the rainy days made her feel protected –invisible-, they also left, pooled upon the ground, the tears from the sky, the tears from the gods. Slowly, she raised herself up, to sit in her futon. Around her, everyone else was asleep. Tokio was relatively new to the Kurasawa residence. It was better to live here, she reflected, than be out in the fields as she had been. The Kurasawas had taken her in due to influence, she guessed, of Teru-hime's.

Silently, she rose to greet the day before it had even really dawned, a pattern she had begun when she had first begun serving Teruhime. _Teru-chan_, she reflected as she dressed, moving so silently as not to wake another soul in the room, where all the female exiles that had been taken in by the Kurasawas slept, in one room, _How I miss you. And Yae-chan. Where are you now?_ Carefully, she took her undernourished frame and stepped outside to sit on the engawa. All around her, the rain fell, making her place in the world just one more place, one more location, steeped in wetness. In front of her was the little garden that the gardener and some of the women took so seriously. Tokio was also known to be seen there, allowing her plants and her comrades to see the scars and calluses on her hands, knowing that once she returned to Edo –Tokyo-, she reminded herself, they would be viewed not as badges of bravery, but of something more disgraceful. Gentle women did not have calluses.

_How melancholy, _she chastised herself, even smiling a little, tucking a soft black strand of hair off of her shoulder. _Tomorrow's worries will come tomorrow._ All too soon, she would go to join Kurasawa-san, wife of Kurasawa Heijiemon, in running the household and doing chores. Kurasawa-san had taken a liking to her, especially after Teru-hime had given her highest recommendation, the only thing she could do to repay her lady-in-waiting and personal friend of years.

"Takagi-san," she looked up, to see one of the women- whose name she hadn't yet caught, who had come before her. The woman smiled down. "Aomura Yuuna, if you please. Kurasawa-san is rising and asking for you. Please go to her."

Tokio nodded, face graced with a small smile of her own. "Of course. Excuse me for being a bother."

Yuuna had a grace about her that transcended even her worn kimono and her own hurt hands. "It's no worry, Takagi-san."

"If you'll excuse me." Tokio rose to her feet, bowed, and walked down the engawa toward her new mistress's room. Kurasawa-san had stressed that she wished to be like a mother to Tokio, instead of a mistress, but Tokio wasn't looking for any kind of relationships with anyone, so she had only smiled.

"Pardon my rudeness, Kurasawa-san," she called, and opened the shoji.

"Welcome, Tokio-chan," the older woman and wife called from inside, and Tokio stepped in. "My husband has offered a home for another few exiles again, and I must be prepared to greet them today." Tokio's eyes adjusted gradually to the darkness of the room, where Kurasawa-san was rising. "And then there are the usual chores. Once I am dressed, Tokio-chan, might I request that you deliver a letter to the Ueno residence? Yumi-san and I have been corresponding lately, and I cannot spare anyone else to leave today, with the preparations for the new arrivals."

"Of course, Kurasawa-san," she murmured, and retrieved the woman's wine-red yukata with lighter red obi, and began to help her out of her sleeping yukata.

"Food will be rather tight, Tokio-chan, I don't know how to solve that particular problem." Today, Tokio thought to herself, would be very colorless. Immediately, she wondered where such a drab attitude was coming from. Coming to live with the Kurasawas had broken her apathy after her rough treatment after the surrender of Crane Castle.

"I will apply myself to that question, Kurasawa-san, and see if any answers can be found. Perhaps the children can collect wild vegetables." She drew the obi around the woman, and focused her attentions upon it.

There was a silence, and Tokio knew the woman was smiling. "I'm glad you've come to this residence, Tokio-chan. You've been such a help to me already. I have every confidence you will help us, and bring good things to our family. Perhaps you would like to stay with us here?" A pause, "You needn't answer that now, Tokio-chan, just understand that you are always welcome, ne?"

Tokio paused in her tying, and bowed her head, "Thank you, Kurasawa-san." It was true that she had nowhere else to go, not with her family dead, part of a system that was gone now. All that was left for her now seemed to be as a servant-daughter to someone. "For everything you have done for me, to prevent hardship for me."

She felt Kurasawa-san's smile increase, and the woman's hand touched hers. "Let's take one day at a time, ne, Tokio-chan?"

"Yes, ma'am." Outside, she could hear the rain coming down outside, in its endless waves. Unlike what the men that had sent her here had said, there was no bright, golden sun rising for her in the Meiji era.

"Now, take these baskets and spread out along here, and look for the vegetables that I taught you," she told them firmly, looking down at the excited faces of the children that currently lived at the Kurasawa household. "And if you sense any trouble, scatter and run, but make sure to take the food with you if you possibly can. Everyone is counting on you, understand?" One by one, Tokio handed out baskets to the children, whose faces and movements were bright as sunbursts in the mid-morning drizzle.

"You're very pretty today, Takagi-sensei!" One of the girls piped up from underneath their tattered umbrella, a leftover from a time when the Kurasawas had many of them. "Will you marry a Tonami man here?" The other girl under that umbrella giggled and elbowed her.

"Quiet! That's so rude to say!" But it was followed by another giggle.

"Go on, now," she said with a smile, a little more self conscious of her hair simply put up in a bun, attended to briefly after attended Kurasawa-san that morning, and her faded blue yukata with a deep blue obi, and her too-large brown eyes in an underfed face. "Maybe the vegetables will teach you some tact, Kira-chan." But she laughed, and the girls smiled gratefully and hurried away, glad for a day outside of the compound, away from the normal chores. Once the children were effectively scattered, Tokio adjusted her umbrella and continued down the road toward the Ueno household.

The morning had brightened her mood, which had come about most likely, she decided, from dreams, although she did not remember them. The children always had such a way of making her feel better, as she remembered her own childhood. Kurasawa-san had put her in charge of educating them, and other needing women, when there was spare time, because of her gentle upbringing. She was sure her father would cast some commentary at how far she'd fallen, from one of the noble families of the land to being a mere servant, answering to lower-status families and running their errands. At that moment, however, Tokio was determined to make the most of her position, the optimism that infused her happy times filled within her once again.

Down the road a way, she could see the rising walls of the Ueno house, where more exiles had been taken in upon their exile to Tonami. The Uenos were an older couple, who were very compassionate, and who could barely, as the Kurasawas, handle the numbers of people now occupying their home. Upon reaching the gate into the home, she rang the little bell by the side of the door.

There was a momentary pause, and then a young boy answered it. "May I help you, Ojou-san?" He inquired, making a very polite bow for a child so young.

"This one is here from the Kurasawa house, to deliver a letter to Ueno Yumi-san. Please pardon my disturbance."

"Welcome in, Ojou-san. Please, come inside." He led her inside and closed the door behind her. People were already bustling all around the enclosure, washing laundry, cleaning, and cooking, as well as the many other endless tasks that the house required. "May I have your name, Ojou-san?"

"This one is Takagi Tokio, servant to Kurasawa Keiko."

"Please wait here for a moment," he told her, and bowed before hurrying away. A few minutes later, the little boy returned, half-dancing in front of a rather elderly, severe woman that Tokio had learned to be Ueno Yumi, wife to Ueno Shichiro. The woman approached her and bowed, and Tokio replied in kind.

"Takagi-san. Keiko-chan speaks highly of you. It is a pleasure to meet you in person."

"The pleasure is mine, Ueno-san. You are a great friend to Kurasawa-san." There was a pause. "Please, accept this correspondence from the lady of the Kurasawa house. It is a reply to your last letter."

The woman took it and inspected it for a moment, then nodded. "Thank you for delivering this, Takagi-san. Please let us give you some food for the trip back. Shinoda-chan was making her buns this morning- if you go to the kitchen, you ought to find her there."

Tokio bowed. "Thank you, Ueno-san. You are very kind. I certainly could not refuse such an offer."

Ueno-san led her to the kitchens before bidding her farewell, inquiring to be sure that Tokio could find her own way out. Alone, Tokio opened the shoji to the kitchens. "Excuse me for my rudeness!" She called to be heard over the noises outside, and opened the door.

"Please enter," the voice inside sounded almost bored, and Tokio's eyes found her instantly. She was very thin, and very tall, with a thinning layer of black hair. Although the light was mediocre, Tokio pondered if the woman was just pale, or if perhaps she was ill.

"Ueno-sama offered me some nourishment in exchange for delivering a letter to her, if you please," Tokio called, having learned long ago to obey the thoughts of her stomach if she possibly could. "My name is Takagi Tokio."

"Indeed, Takagi-chan?" The woman fixed her level gaze on the much shorter woman, looking down upon her with eyes that reminded Tokio of dying leaves. "Well, if my mistress asks it, I will certainly provide. I am called Shinoda Yaso. Please come in, and shut the door behind you."

"Thank you, Shinoda-san," Tokio replied, and closed the door, coming to kneel down at the small table in the corner as Yaso indicated. The woman soon joined her, handing her two vegetable buns.

"So, what news have you, Takagi-chan? Do you know the contents of the letter, perhaps? New gossip from up the road?"

Tokio noticed that the woman was incredibly forward and very blunt, and bowed her head, noticing Yaso was probably six or seven years older than she. "I do not know much in the way of gossip, Shinoda-san. The most I can say is that my mistress is expecting another set of exiles to arrive at Kurasawa house today."

Yaso scrutinized her for a moment as she ate her bun politely. "You seem very _good_, Takagi-chan," she said unexpectedly, making Tokio distinctly uncomfortable. "Very honorable."

"Shinoda-san is very kind," she murmured in reply, all too aware that Yaso hadn't quite meant it as a compliment. "I am merely trying to make my way in the world."

"Oh, aren't we all, Takagi-chan." In barely an instant, Yaso's attitude had changed from criticizing to almost wistful. "Although one makes her way, always, always, to arrive only at death." Her eyes rested once again on her young companion, sharp as an eagle. "One must never forget this, isn't that true, Takagi-chan?"

"I, personally, live for the moments I will have before death, Shinoda-san, not for death itself." This startled a laugh out of Yaso.

"Or perhaps not so good, after all! The little bird, trying to fly to a bluer sky, perhaps. Were you one of the ones who fought with Teru-hime at Crane Castle, Takagi-chan?" This question was the kindest posed to Tokio yet from this woman, and she nodded gracefully, mulling over the puzzle that Shinoda Yaso seemed to be.

"Yes, ma'am, I was. I came there as Teru-hime's personal lady-in-waiting."

"I see, Takagi-chan. Your name means little anymore, however, if I'm not mistaken."

Tokio shook her head and met Yaso's eyes squarely. "No. My father is dead and I am to survive on my own wits from now on, Shinoda-san. Teru-hime has been kind enough to give me assistance here and there, however."

The older woman looked down at her with an unreadable look for quite a while, and Tokio finished off her food. Finally, she bowed her head when she realized Yaso wasn't going to say anything. "Thank you very much for the meal, Shinoda-san. You have been very good to me."

"I like you, Takagi-chan. Come back and visit me again sometime, if your time permits. I do not stray far from this kitchen," she said, once again unexpectedly. "Between us, let there be the truth, Takagi-chan. I was not very good to you."

"You meant me no malice, Shinoda-san. I would be grateful to be allowed to visit you again."

"I mean everyone malice," Yaso replied unaffectedly as she rose, prompting her guest to do the same. "Everything and everyone. Strangers are no friends, Takagi-chan. You are young, and I will teach you that much."

Tokio could think of nothing fitting to reply to that, so she merely bowed her head and repeated her thanks.

"Run along now, Takagi-chan. We both have things to do." They were the last words spoken, and then Tokio found herself outside once more, with the shoji shut firmly behind her. Shrugging off her momentary disorientation, she headed to the gate.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's notes: I do not own any of the characters. Mostly, I'm just posting this story so I can, hopefully, get some feedback on it. Please let me know what you think! In this chapter, the other featured character should be making his first appearance. Also, if anyone has historical questions, please let me know. Should I start some notes at the end to explain certain things? I would appreciate feedback on this. Murasaki

Tokio entered the side gate to the Kurasawa house quietly, only to be almost run over by Kurasawa Keiko as she saw her assistant's return. "Tokio-chan! Hideo says he saw the wagon carrying the exiles coming up the road- they should be here very soon! Do we have a room for them?"

"Of course, Kurasawa-san," she consoled gently, having set others to the task before she had left that morning. "They will have space with the other men. We have partitioned off a place for them to be a section together." Her calm demeanor was having an instantaneous positive effect on Kurasawa-san. "Are you ready to greet them when they arrive, Kurasawa-san?"

Kurasawa Keiko paused a moment in honest amazement that Tokio could be so calm and prepared when she had just returned from walking all the way down the road to the Uenos. Nothing seemed to visibly faze Tokio- in fact, as much as circumstances could allow, she looked clean and well kept, when anyone else would have been disheveled from walking down the road. "Yes, Tokio-chan," she answered finally, feeling like the younger one in spite of their true ages. "Thank you very much."

Tokio actually smiled fully, which surprised Keiko even more, for the girl was very reserved. "Don't worry, Kurasawa-san. Go join your husband, and prepare to greet the newcomers. I will go and retrieve some men to help unload their belongings when they arrive, and we will all meet in the courtyard."

"I will see you then, Tokio-chan."

"Until then, Kurasawa-san." The girl bowed and walked off, imperturbably, as usual, leaving her mistress to sigh a little at how effortlessly she maintained such a ladylike image. In both her and Heijiemon's eyes, Takagi Tokio could really do no wrong, even after falling so far socially. She really hoped, as she hurried off, that Tokio would decide to stay with them after all this had blown over, becoming like a daughter to them.

Tokio was present, standing with her head bowed as was proper behind her mistress, as the carriage rolled in, carrying wearied men from detainment in Niigata. Behind her stood six men who had volunteered right away to help unload the belongings of the men who were to arrive. From the engawa, the women and other men watched as they pretended to go about their work, not brave enough to stop when Kurasawa Heijiemon was at home and present.

The carriage rolled to a stop, and a short man climbed out, bidding the others to stay there while he ventured up to the Kurasawas. Bowing politely, he introduced himself and their plight to Tokio's master, and as hard as she tried to pay attention, she felt a lingering gaze upon her. Curious, but not wanting to be impolite, she raised her head a fraction of an inch, then paused to make sure no one was watching. When no one sent so much as a passing glance her way, she moved her eyes upward toward the worn and weathered wagon, where men were clustered inside.

_Of course,_ she thought to herself, nettled silently. She agreed with Teru's secret opinion of men, that they were good for war and not much else, after what she had seen at Crane Castle. Certainly, they had their good points, but fighting, warfare and violence were in their blood and there was no ignoring it, and what they could do to women when the vaguest fancy struck them-. Wars and idealism. Most men believed that women were the ones who believed the greatest in ideals, but they were wrong. Greviously so.

Something flashed from within the dark shelter of the tarp over the glorified cart, and Tokio's breath backed up in her throat, paralyzing her, choking her for a moment, sending the twin snakes of curiousity and terror spiraling through her until she calmed down and forced herself to breathe again. Looking up again, a little farther this time, disregarding the thoughts of any passing glances disapproving, she saw the gold flash again, sending something dangerously potent sailing through her body once again. Forcing herself not to jerk back, coaxing her lungs into breathing, she identified the source. A pair of eyes, almost-glowing amber eyes that pierced the world around him, gathering in all light to come out again, refocused upon the rest of the world that he obviously watched ardently. Without rest.

"My wife and her servant Takagi will be more than happy to look after your men," Heijiemon bowed slightly, "I apologize, but there is much work to be done with so many more people currently residing in Goko at this time."

"We give our humblest thanks to you, Kurasawa-sama," the man replied, bowing low. The two men made a few more formalities before Heijiemon departed, and Tokio came forward with her six recruits. Kurasawa Keiko stood back, waiting to direct them to their room.

Tokio's heart was beating rapidly, like the little bird that had become her teasing nickname to more than one person. Teru had once said it was because Tokio was so small, light, and thin, that she looked as small and fragile as a bird. All through the conversations, the man with the golden eyes had not lifted his eyes from her. She had no idea what he saw, or what his intentions were- if he saw her as a woman, or if he had assessed the political situation of the household to know that she harnessed very subtle but strong power here. Certainly, she knew that she knew no one with such a piercing golden gaze, so it could not possibly be an acquaintance.

One by one, to greet her and her assistants, the men piled out, trying not to look so wearied and dirty from their confinement and their hasty journey on the road. At some point, the piercing gaze traveled away from her, and Tokio tried her hardest to keep her head slightly bowed, to keep herself from searching for it, to demand back with her eyes to see what the gaze saw. Men could never leave women alone. Never out of their affairs.

"If you please, we would be happy to carry your extra possessions and help you move into your new quarters," she spoke softly, but everyone was listening to the pretty girl in faded blue. "Welcome to your new home, the Kurasawa residence. Kurasawa Heijiemon and Kurasawa Keiko are pleased to have you here. My name," she paused because, at those words, she felt the gaze upon her again, but she didn't dare look up unless she wanted to be immobilized by it, "is Takagi Tokio. If you have any problems about fitting in here, or any issues about tasks or the house, please direct them to me. I will help you as best as I can. I am personal assistant to Kurasawa Keiko. Any petitions to the master and mistress of the house may also be given through me." With that, she bowed, and gestured for the men to gather possessions from the cart. Slowly, behind all the others, Tokio moved toward the cart with her back straight, determined to pull her weight. In her own way, she was just as strong as these men, as she had spent her share of time in the fields and doing manual labor. Her calluses were just as thick as any of the other exiles', now.

Someone dropped a sack in her hands before she even reached the back of the wagon, and she looked up, surprised. It was followed by another bag, and another, and she juggled them until she could hold all of them securely. In doing so, she revealed the face of the man who had burdened her with them. Unprepared, she had to catch her breath all over again at the golden gaze as he looked down at her critically.

_He reminds me a bit of Yaso_, she thought to herself, knowing it was far too late to do anything but meet his gaze squarely. "Thank you, sir," she said, doing everything she could to remain calm and neutral. The man had a pointed, undernourished face and short hair, cut rather crooked as though it had been done recently, at someone else's insistence and hand. Despite the grime and dirt, something radiated from him that gave him the impression of being immaculate- as if you'd be an idiot to think he would be any other way. And the way his jaw pointed, and his eyes gleamed, reminded her of the wolves that she could hear, sometimes, howling in her dreams and in the countryside.

"Hn," he replied, patting his pocket of his western-style clothing in an obvious attempt to find a pack of cigarettes, which he didn't have, then hoisting another bag over his shoulder. "The rest of them packed half of Japan with them, it seems."

She bowed her head, biting her tongue at the obvious truth of it, as men clamoured to get bag upon bag out of the wagon. The man's voice was low, and very dry, at some points almost like a growl.

"Shirou!" The wolf-man barked out suddenly, patting his pocket for a cigarette again and then growling when he didn't have one, "The lady has two of your bags." The man he addressed turned and waved at her, and waved the wolf-man away. "The last one's mine," he told her gruffly, "Take care of it."

"Of course, sir," she replied in a murmur, wishing she could be anywhere else. Such a stink was rising from these men. But the man beside her seemed to be cleaner than the rest, both physically and in manner. There was a small tag on his bag, which read in terse kanji, _Ichinohe Denpachi_. One eyebrow arched, despite her best efforts. The name didn't seem to fit the man in the slightest.

After a few minutes, Ichinohe gave a small cough, and before she could blink again, all the men were lined up in a row. _Funny,_ she thought to herself, _a different man introduced the men before, but they obviously follow this one most closely._

"This way, if you please," she called out to them, leading them out with there possessions, bedraggled and exhausted, toward Kurasawa Keiko. Following directly behind her was the man Ichinohe, and his eyes never left her, even as they all bowed to Kurasawa-san. Ichinohe unnerved her, as she felt his gaze in her back. More than ever, he reminded her of her new acquaintance in the Ueno kitchens, Shinoda Yaso.

"Welcome," Kurasawa-san said to all of them, bowing in reply. "Please follow me." Everyone followed her up the step to the engawa, then down the row to mens' sleeping room. Kurasawa-san and Tokio stopped right in front of the door's threshold. Ichinohe strode in right past them, ignoring Tokio's single attempt to hold out his bag for him to take. The man he had called Shirou collected his two bags from her with a sheepish apology, but Tokio could only watch Ichinohe as he glared around the room, and her cheeks burned in embarrassment that he would do such a thing as Kurasawa-san was standing there, awaiting his perfunctory approval.

"I-Ichinohe-san?" Tokio immediately cursed her voice for trembling, but was honest enough with herself to know that she didn't want to attract that gaze upon herself again. It made her feel too much. The man in the room visibly paused, then turned with a slow deliberateness in his movements to face her. This time, she was braced before his gaze struck her, and didn't freeze up in front of her mistress.

"That's not my name," he said simply, cold in his voice infiltrating the room, eyes increasing in intensity.

"Hey, Fujita-san," Shirou stepped up in front of her with a small bow to the two women, "That was the only name she had for you. The lady just wanted you to take your luggage, am I right, ma'am?" The man Shirou was so polite compared to Fujita, as she knew his name to be, that she warmed to him immediately.

"Yes," she replied demurely, lowering her eyes precisely at the right moment, "Thank you." Shirou reached over to take the sack from her instead, but in a lightning second Fujita was there, knocking his arm away and jolting Tokio backward as he snatched it away. Tokio turned beet red in her embarrassment that she was exposing her mistress to, but a scant moment later, Kurasawa-san steadied her gently and gave her a reassuring look.

"I apologize for my companion Fujita Goro's behavior this evening," Shirou bowed deeply. "We've traveled a long road and he is more tired than most. Tomorrow he'll be another man entirely, I promise you. We are all humbly sorry."

Tokio nodded numbly, and followed Kurasawa-san's example as she bowed back deeply. "We shall wait until tomorrow to make introductions, then," Kurasawa-san replied cheerily. "Please, settle yourselves in here, and Tokio-chan here will look into getting baths drawn for you, and food brought to your rooms. There are too many people here to have everyone dine together, regrettably."

"Thank you very much," Shirou bowed deeply again, and the women made their exit.

Once they were back in Kurasawa Keiko's room later that night did the two discuss the new exiles. Keiko was happy to notice Tokio's growing security in the role the Kurasawas had given her, and they spoke as plainly as they ever had. Which was still very reserved. Keiko respected that it took quite some time to get into Tokio's confidences.

"Did Fujita-san startle you too badly today, Tokio-chan? I had no idea he would be so rude, I apologize."

"It's not your fault, Kurasawa-san," Tokio replied as she took the pins out of her mistress's hair. "I am quite unharmed, thank you."

"I'm glad to hear it, Tokio-chan. If I could give you a day off, you know I would. However, I'm afraid you'll have to be dealing frequently with these new exiles."

"It's no matter to me, Kurasawa-san. Don't worry." Tokio bowed her head for a moment, and Keiko's hair came falling down. She stepped back. "Is there anything else you will require of me tonight, Kurasawa-san?"

Keiko shook her head. "No, Tokio-chan. Go get some sleep. Oyasumi nasai."

"Oyasumi nasai, Kurasawa-san." As quietly as she always came, she was gone.

Tokio walked out onto the engawa with every intent on going to her room, but found her feet taking her instead to the small ladder at the end of the building, leading up to the roof for maitenence work. The storms of earlier had burned off, and as every light in the house went off, she was left only with endless stars.

What a day it had been, she pondered to herself, keeping half an eye on the moon as it stared down at her. What a day. But it was over now, everyone else had gone to bed, and she was alone and free. Letting her mind run blank, she stared up at the sky, wondering about counting the stars.

_Wait a moment, _she thought to herself suddenly, eyebrows furrowing as she inhaled through her nose. _Is that the smell of that horrible cigarette-_. Not two handspans from her face, someone stubbed out a cigarette, and she gasped both in surprise and because she felt the piercing gaze from before. Her first reflex was to snap her eyes shut.

"You're the first warrior I've known who closes their eyes when a stranger is nearby," the dry voice of the wolf-man remarked from above her head. "Takagi Tokio."

"I won't fall for that," she retorted roughly, knowing that this kind of thing most definitely flaunted social mores, being alone on the roof with an unmarried man. With any man, for that matter. She had come to value her position at the Kurasawas' too much to ruin it with Fujita Goro, the wolf-man. "Your gaze does strange things. I avoid it by keeping them closed."

There was silence. She waited, refusing to fall for any trap. Finally, she heard his quick intake of breath, even as she puzzled out the fastest way off of the roof. What was he _doing_ up here, anyway? Was he insane? Then there was a mysterious 'thump', and an exhale of breath, then a sliding sound. When Tokio peeked a glance, she noticed to both her mortification and amusement that the man had laid himself out on the roof immediately next to her. Hopefully, she prayed, the thump wasn't loud enough to be heard through the roof, because he'd just blocked off her quickest and safest exit.

"Fujita-san," she pleaded, wanting her peaceful tranquility, "This is untoward, and I was here first. Please at least allow me the option to leave the roof."

"If you don't like it," he retorted, "Pretend I'm not here."

She caught herself before she rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Fujita-san, I'm afraid it does not work like that, and if anyone were to investigate, that excuse would simply not work."

"For the sake of the gods," he sighed exasperatedly, "I'm not going to take advantage of you, idiotic woman. What kind of man do you take me for?"

Tokio thought back to the room before. "I certainly don't know, Fujita-san."

The man took another drag on a mysteriously produced cigarette and rubbed his temple as if she gave him a headache. "Pretend we are both shadows, Takagi-san. Shadows have no form, they cannot inflict physical harm upon another. They are transient. On my honor as bushi, I will not harm you this night."

Evidently, she thought dryly, this meant much to him. Not as much to her, however, who had seen 'bushi' and what they would do to women. Who had seen warriors and what they would do to women. However, seeing as he could prevent her as easily as drawing a breath from leaving the roof, she relaxed as much as she could beside him, so as not to aggravate him further.

"I apologize if I somehow provoked you earlier today," she half-whispered finally, wanting to say something to break the silence with the smoking, silent man. He exhaled a long line of smoke before even bothering to think of a reply. He wore a western uniform which had seen better days, and it accented the longness of his body. "By using the wrong name."

"It matters not." He offered no more explanation.

"It was impossible for me to know you had changed it."

"You are a friend of Yamamoto Yae, are you not?" He asked abruptly. Tokio hardly missed a beat.

"Yes. She and Teru-hime and I were great companions at Crane Castle."

"You cut her hair."

A pause. "I did. Might I be rude enough to ask you why you know all this?"

"There is no need for formalities with me, woman."

"Why, then?" This man puzzled her greatly, but now that he wasn't looking at her, the rhythm that their conversation had taken almost lulled her. Even that thought made her strive to be back on edge, because as she had seen, this man was unpredictable.

"She traveled with me to the Aizu front."

Tokio's eyebrows furrowed in thought. Yaeko had told her this story, of course, but the man's name had not been Fujita Goro, nor Ichinohe Denpachi. "You change your name frequently, then."

"As it suits the times."

"Saitou Hajime."

"There have been other names before."

Why was he telling her this, she asked herself. Why would she need to know this? This man seemed like the kind of person who would keep any secrets, no matter how harmless, very close. "I see." It was interesting, of course, the man was endlessly intruiging to her, but she knew that more often than not, curiousity was unappreciated. "Why are you telling a stranger these things?"

"Perhaps it is because," he said, nonchalantly and emotionlessly, "This one wants to get to know you better." The humility only added to the dryness in his voice, and his voice in that instant chilled her to her bones. Before he could turn to face her, as he was obviously intending to do, Tokio panicked.

The need to get off the roof, away from this terrifying wolf-man, overwhelmed her, and she jumped to her feet with lightning speed, and her eyes fell to the nearest exit.

The wolf watched emotionlessly through his golden eyes, propped up on one elbow, as the little bird took a flight off of the roof, over the low-lying wall butting up against the building, and to the dark ground below.


	3. Chapter 3

Sorry for the delay, everyone! Thank you so much for reading. Here's the next two chapters for your enjoyment. Please comment, because I would love hearing from you. If there are any inaccuracies, they are my fault/artistic license, depending. Please enjoy! Murasaki. I do not own any of the characters.

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"Pardon my rudeness, Fujita-san," Kurasawa Heijiemon began tiredly as his wife tended to the injuried Tokio, whose ankle was an ugly purple color and her arm bent oddly and swelling, "But might I impose upon you to explain to me exactly what happened to cause you to find Takagi-chan outside of the wall in such a state?"

Tokio opened her mouth as if to speak a reply before Fujita could, but Keiko hushed her before she could even begin.

"I heard someone on the roof directly above our quarters and awoke, Kurasawa-sama," he replied stiffly, all too aware that he was lying only at the girl Takagi's pleading insistence. "I heard said person fall, and went to investigate. Takagi-san was laying outside of the wall, dazed, with the injuries you see here. She was unclear as to how exactly it had happened, and I deduced that she had been sleepwalking and somehow climbed up onto the roof. I carried her back in, and brought her to you."

"You were sleepwalking, Tokio-chan?" Keiko asked in a hushed whisper. Tokio could only nod as her mistress probed her ankle.

"Nightmares," she finally managed to gasp, letting all her air out in an exhale. "I don't usually get them so bad- as far as I know, I've never sleepwalked before."

"I think we can safely conclude this as a one-time event," Kurasawa concluded gravely, wanting more than anything just to go to sleep again, "As she has had no previous history of it. If she can last the night, we will bring her to a doctor to examine her arm tomorrow. Until then, Fujita-san, if you would perform for us one last favor...?"

Tokio's eyes shot open again, but both knew that she couldn't react without giving it all away. He approached her with the proper splinting supplies, given to him by Kurasawa Keiko. "If your wife is weak against pain, I suggest that you would escort her out now," he told Kurasawa gruffly, kneeling by Tokio's side on the futon.

"We will be right outside," he assured the wolf-like man.

"Ahou," he muttered to her under his breath as he situated himself, "I told you I would do nothing."

"Thank you for lying to them," she muttered rebelliously, a thin sheen of sweat coating her forehead, "But not for the rest of it." Finally, she rolled her eyes heavenward. "Just fix me up so we can be done with each other."

"As you wish, my lady," he replied mockingly. Deep inside, Tokio tried to switch off the voice inside of her that called for Teru, not him.

Without warning, he took her arm and started moving it, catching her by surprise. By the time she was ready to scream, he had completed the movement and was bandaging it to immobility. Both were acutely aware of the contact that this task required, and he worked as quickly as he could.

"Thank you," she said aloud after a moment, to signal to the Kurasawas that they could safely re-enter, "Saitou Hajime," she added half-mockingly underneath her breath. Before he could protest in any way, the Kurasawas were back in the room.

"She will be fine until tomorrow," Fujita announced, "But she should not walk." At their slightly worried looks, he continued, masking a sigh, "If Kurasawa-san," he nodded to Keiko, "Will accompany us, I would volunteer myself to carry her to her room."

Keiko nodded gravely. "Go to bed, anata. I will take care of this." Kurasawa and Fujita bowed to each other, and Fujita lifted the sleepy Tokio into his arms before she could protest.

As they walked to the room, Tokio's good arm hanging around his neck for balance while he carried her bridal style, Kurasawa-san a few steps ahead, he bowed his head over and whispered very lowly into Tokio's ear, "You alone may call me Saitou Hajime," he hissed, "If any others should hear of this name... I will know where they heard of it. Only you, and in private only."

"Did you say something, Fujita-san?" Kurasawa-san asked innocently from up ahead. Tokio and Saitou exchanged glances, and she lied in turn, for him, without missing a beat.

"It must've been just the cicadas, Kurasawa-san." Saitou adjusted his grip on the too-light woman as Kurasawa-san opened the shoji. By the time he had crossed the room to her futon, she was asleep, breathing gently onto the uncovered place of his neck. When he dropped her to the mattress, she barely stirred, and her breathing regulated itself once more as he pulled the blankets up about her. The moment seemed to him to be too intense, too full of flavor and impressions, and he retreated quickly to where Kurasawa-san waited at the door without a look back at the Takagi girl.

"Give this one a crutch, if you please, and this one would walk," Tokio appealed again the next morning. "This one's injuries are by no means life-threatening." They were walking down the hill in the brilliant sunlight of mid-morning and Kurasawa Keiko's insistence that they go see a doctor. Fujita Goro and Aomura Yuuna, that was, taking small steps beside the larger, intimidating man with the terrifying eyes, were walking, with Takagi Tokio tucked firmly in the wolf-man's arms.

Her pleas were met with silence from her captor. Yuuna hummed a little. "This one could tend to this one's own wounds, if you please, there is no need even to go and see the doctor. There's nothing he can do that could not be done at home, isn't that so?"

"Stop trying my patience, woman," the wolf snapped, eyes narrowing, as he adjusted his grip on the woman in his arms. Yuuna's forehead wrinkled a little bit, but then smoothed over when the wolf threatened to look at her.

"You didn't have to volunteer yourself for this," she snapped back, forgetting herself once again with this man. Yuuna's forehead crinkled a little more, and she dropped back a few paces. Saitou shot Tokio a look to peel paint, and she colored, for he had a point- too many more comments like that, and the unusually astute Yuuna would begin to understand things that needn't be understood. "I meant, that I could've tended to myself. There was no reason for a stranger to carry me all the way down and up this hill, or spend the money at the doctor."

"Don't worry, Takagi-san," Yuuna called from her place five paces behind Saitou. "It seemed to me that Fujita-san didn't want to help with the washing, anyway. And Kurasawa-san has her little emergency funds, and she was happy to spend them on your health."

Tokio ground her teeth into silence. Yuuna, she had discovered, was just a tad _too_ helpful at times. Saitou now had a triumphant look in his eyes. They were rapidly approaching the Ueno residence, and all that Tokio would need to finish off this little irony would be for Shinoda Yaso to decide to take some air at the wrong moment.

Impatient, hoping to force him to put her down, she adjusted positions a little, jarring the tender spot on her head against his chest. Dizziness overtook her once again, forcing her to shrink back on herself and rest her head against him again. "Idiot," he muttered as he seemed to sense her disorientation, and paused in the road. "Stop moving, unless you _want_ to cause more damage. Women." The last was uttered as if he was casting his eyes heavenward, but instead he only started walking once again. Delicious smells wafted from the kitchen of the Ueno house, but she did not see Yaso. Perhaps if she evaded Kurasawa-san and Yuuna's gaze, she could make a visit later.

Tokio closed her eyes lightly and let all her thoughts slip away as they walked past the Ueno gate, feeling only the sun on her face and the steady gait of the man who carried her as if she weighed nothing. It would have been romantic, had the man not been so disturbing and rude. _Well, _she reflected, _after this little excursion I think I will be able to avoid him once again. In fact, it is most definitely in my best interest to do so. I can always deal with him through that kind man, Shirou-san._

Saitou Hajime, Fujita Goro, or whatever name he felt like referring to himself with, she noticed, at that moment was also in contemplation. A warm breeze blew gently by them, and the sun threatened to outshine everything. The day was so perfect it made him a little sick. Takagi Tokio seemed to be enjoying it immensely, he observed, but at least she had shut her mouth and let him walk in peace, so he couldn't really complain, unless he wanted to start all the "this one"s all over again. Just the thought made him want to grind his teeth. And the woman was quietly, plainly beautiful, he had to admit. She didn't seem dull, although she was very reserved toward everyone, and he sensed within her still a will to fight her circumstances, even though she seemed so damn retiring currently. The moment her head had fallen to rest on his shirt, his system had momentarily been thrown into shock, but he knew it was just because he hadn't had a woman for quite a while. Not that he was intending anything of the sort with the bird-like woman who was cradled in his arms currently. He liked to think of himself as having some sort of moral value.

"Saitou-san?" He heard her whisper, and looked down, having resigned himself since she first started using it that she would never call him Fujita when she didn't absolutely have to, only to look back up again to check that Yuuna was still walking behind them, singing a soft tune.

"Aa." He tried to sound as disinterested as possible, to mask any signs that he had been pondering her for the last few minutes. As a result, it didn't come out quite cynical enough. She didn't visibly seem to notice, but he didn't get his hopes up.

"Would you like to rest? Am I too heavy for you?" Truth to tell, he hadn't even begun to feel her weight yet. She seemed to be almost hollow-boned. He snorted, and walked on with a little more purpose in his step. He felt her sigh, and relax her head against him again, occupying again the warm spot that had departed from his shirt. "If you insist upon carrying me all this way, I suppose I can't refuse..."

"You already tried," he replied flatly, and continued on the path. He desperately needed a cigarette- he was beginning to suspect a correlation between the number of cigarettes he smoked and the time he spent around the woman drastically rising. More cigarettes per minute. He smirked inwardly.

"Well, it _is_ embarrassing being carried all this way by someone with such an obviously crooked haircut." Her voice had taken on a subtle but at the same time, distinctive lilt, which he identified quickly as her making a dry remark with a hint of humor.

"Cut it at the temple," he told her roughly, wishing he could keep walking and as he did, leave the conversation behind.

She looked down again, closing her eyes once more, only slightly ashamed that she brought up something that, it seemed, actually bothered him a little, if she wasn't very much mistaken. "I see."

A pause in conversation. After a few minutes, when it was apparent to the other party that the other was not going to say anything, it became, once again, their non-conversation of before, going back to the simple awareness of bodies touching, and understanding and denying needs and wants and curiousities.

"Saitou-san," the voice near his collar came again, in a way that with almost any other woman would've been annoying.

"If you're going to say something, get it out already, Takagi-san," he growled, rolling his eyes at her attempt to be polite.

"Hai." Another pause, and if she hadn't been injured, he would've been sorely tested against shaking her roughly. "I could... fix it. Your hair."

They had arrived at the clinic just outside of the village without really realizing it. Yuuna was quickly catching up with them. He rolled his eyes to the heavens, and replied finally, "Aa. If it will get you to shut up." He didn't miss her smile, although she thought he did.

"This is it, Fujita-san," Yuuna said, quite unnecessarily.

"Sou ka," he replied sarcastically. Yuuna moved away from him and through the door.

Much to Tokio's intense mortification, the doctor didn't give her a crutch of any sort because, as he put it to her in an aside, "You have a perfectly good young man there to carry you, Takagi-san, and he doesn't seem to mind." Tokio wanted to scream at him in frustration, the kind of tantrum that struck her only very, very rarely. Immediately, as Yuuna was paying the doctor's assistant and the man was checking the injury to her head, she began to devise ideas made of tree branches.

However, quite to her surprise, Saitou did not complain when it came time for him to pick her up once more, sliding her into the now-familier position in his arms. As they thanked the doctor, who told her to rest and walk only sparingly, Tokio already felt herself drifting off into a doze, feeling safe and secure.

His charge was already dead asleep by the time the passed the Ueno residence, Saitou noticed, taking note at how quiet she had been the entire way there. He barely felt her weight, she had such little meat on her bones. The comparison made him smirk a little.

"Did little Takagi-chan fall?" A voice from his side spoke, faintly insolent. He looked over to see a woman in a simple working kimono with her long black hair tied back in a loose ponytail coming over to them, a small frown on her face.

Tokio stirred before he had the doubtful pleasure of explaining the situation. "I sleepwalked, Shinoda-san," she replied sleepily, resting her head more firmly on Saitou's shoulder while she looked up at who he could only assume to be a friend of hers. "Fujita-san has been kind enough to bring me to the doctor at Kurasawa Keiko's insistence."

From behind them, Aomura Yuuna nodded, slightly icily, from behind Saitou's back at the new woman, and continued to walk down the road. Yaso's eyes flashed slightly at the woman. "Why don't you two come in and sit awhile? It must be tiring, dragging Takagi-chan from place to place, sir." She batted her lashes a little, not enough to be blantantly overt. The man only looked back at her, face completely unreadable.

"Fujita-san, this is Shinoda Yaso. She works in the kitchens of the Ueno house, here," Tokio introduced politely, "Shinoda-san, this is Fujita Goro, one of the new group to be staying at the Kurasawa residence."

Yaso bowed no more than was absolutely polite, a look of challenge on her face to combat the stoic look on the wolf's. "Come on back. Your escort's already gone, anyway." She spoke right over Tokio's squirming to find Yuuna, and her sighed "I'm sorry, Aomura-san..."

"Fujita-san can have one of my cigarettes," she invited, and the wolf finally fell into step behind her.

Saitou and Yaso tucked her into a corner, propped up by two walls, and Yaso even fetched her a blanket and a cushion. Saitou sat at the table nearby, and feasted upon the cigarette Yaso tossed at him before taking one of her own.

They sat there in silence for a little while, the two older ones smoking while Tokio sipped her small glass of tea and fought off yawns. Only as she opened her mouth to start some kind of conversation did she realize that Saitou and Yaso were sitting across from each other at the table, sizing each other up, at least one of them not in the most unflattering of ways. Embarrassed, she closed her mouth again. _Well,_ she thought, _they did remind me of each other._ Who was she to interfere in whatever was going on between those two? She asked herself sternly, and nodded very slightly, staring at her tea.

All in that moment, she reflected as silence pervaded the kitchen, she wished Yuuna had stayed, or that the doctor had given her a crutch. For reasons she both did and did not understand, she wanted to be out of that kitchen and away, back at the Kurasawa residence, looking after Kurasawa Keiko. Tokio's head began to throb painfully- could she have fallen any more awkwardly, she chided herself. Despite her best efforts, her eyes began to drift shut.

Yaso turned to look at the sleeping girl, following the wolf-man's gaze. "She fell rather badly, it seems," she noted coolly. "And you volunteered to bring her down to the doctor?"

The man continued to smoke, to all appearances nonchalantly. "Yes."

Yaso raised her eyebrows, but he remained simply watching first woman, then the other, impassively. "For a stranger, you seem to take care of her quite protectively."

"I'm indebted to the Kurasawas for allowing me to stay," he replied automatically, rising and stubbing out his cigarette in Tokio's empty teacup as he crouched beside her.

"I like her, Fujita-san," Yaso's voice had a mocking lilt to his name, "If I hear of you harming her..." She trailed off, and he went very still, halfway through the process of picking up the small woman.

"She's not my concern," he replied noncommittally, rising to his feet and making for the door.

"Come back again sometime, Fujita-san," Yaso replied in a voice that seemed to signify that she would not be thwarted, "You know where to find me."

He merely inclined his head and walked out.


	4. Chapter 4

I do not own any of the characters. I write for the enjoyment of others, and I am a poor student, so please do not sue. Let me know how you like it, and if you have any comments/suggestions. Murasaki

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August of 1870 (Meiji 3)

It was mid-afternoon when someone knocked at the door, and a lilting, soft voice called out, "Please pardon my rudeness!" Saitou scowled at the door, putting away his shoes, which he was polishing inside to avoid all the patented idiots that seemed to have invaded the Kurasawa house. Then he went very still as the door opened.

"Who is it?" He called, before he could see the face, having a very good idea of who it really was.

"Takagi Tokio, at your service, Fujita-san." She bowed to him at the door, hiding a small smile in the shadows of the door. He noticed, and then realized, a little irritably, that she had meant him to.

He had spoken to her rarely since his arrival, since she'd fallen off the roof his first night there. She was always busy, serving everyone with a smile that he was curious to know if she actually felt. Idly curious, he amended to himself, nothing more. "Your business here?" He asked, knowing very well that she had been politely avoiding him purposely the last few months, interacting only on a very basic level.

"I had realized I had forgotten a promise to you, Fujita-san," she replied, eyes moving to cast over his face. Or, more particularly, his hair. He had made a few attempts to fix it himself, and settled mainly for tying it back in a small ponytail. "If you have the time available, I would cut your hair."

Saitou knew better than to think she'd forgotten about something like that, although with the passage of time, he had been beginning to wonder. Hope, he amended to himself again, he had begun to hope. "Surely there is something more productive both of us could be doing," he pointed out dryly.

Tokio shrugged her thin shoulders gently. "I was planning on doing as I brought the children outside to collect more firewood and fruits and vegetables. We're planning on going over by the river today- plenty of berry bushes there."

In the past few months, he noted before he could stop himself, the woman's face had filled out to look a little more her age, and she seemed stronger, especially emotionally, then she had been when he'd first met her. Through all of that, however, she had not put on an ounce of weight, as far as he could tell. Times were lean, of course, he dismissed it. "I suppose I have nothing else –better- to do," he replied, trying to sound bored with the proposition as he followed her out.

"I'll be waiting here for you," Tokio told the serious-faced children, "Please find everything you can, and please remember not to go off alone- stay with your partner at all times, understand?" She began to distribute the little baskets to the pairs of children.

"Takagi-sensei?" One of the girls, Kaede, sidled up to her as her partner, Katsu, took the basket from their teacher. "Who is that man? He lives with us in the house, doesn't he?" Her voice was in a whisper, but Tokio didn't doubt that Saitou, over by the tree, could still hear them. There was something about that man.

"Yes, Kaede-chan," she smiled, trying to diffuse the tension the girls had about him, although she identified perfectly well, "His name is Fujita Goro. And be careful with that basket, Katsu-chan, it has a little hole in the side, see?"

The little girl nodded, "I'll be careful, Takagi-sensei." They hurried off, and Tokio watched them go, old hands now at the prospect of finding food for the Kurasawa house, before turning and joining her companion.

"Saitou-san," she called softly as she walked toward him, "I beg your pardon, for making you wait." They sat in the shade of the tree, Tokio directly behind him.

He felt the gentleness in her fingers as she draped a piece of scrap fabric over his shoulders to catch the hair that fell. Saitou tried to shake himself mentally, cursing a mental blue streak that he noticed such things about the woman, when it was not his place to think of them. She reached over his shoulder to guide the fabric again, reaching to grab it professionally with the other hand, coming over his other shoulder. Tokio then tucked it into his collar, disturbing the hair at his neck.

"Do you have any preferences about wanting it cut?" She asked, still in her soft, businesslike tone.

"It matters not to me," he replied, but the usual gruffness was slightly lacking. She chose to ignore it, but he knew she noticed.

"Fine, then." There was silence again as she undid his ponytail, combing through it first with her fingers, then with a little comb she had brought along. "How is my friend Shinoda-san? I haven't visited her in a couple weeks now." On the surface, it sounded as if she was just making idle conversation, but through some ironic trick, Saitou Hajime had learned to read the woman better than that.

The scissors came, trimming up the ends of his hair to begin with. If she was hiding something on this topic, he couldn't very well point it out to her, as he was hiding something just as well. "She is as she usually is," he replied before he realized that he hadn't –quite- allowed himself to lie to her.

"She is one woman definitely destined to remain herself, you know, Fujita-san," Tokio remarked amicably, "I find it quite admirable." For his part, he was now scanning the area for whoever had come into hearing that he, somehow, had not noticed, for her to switch using names like that. She'd become quite attached to using Saitou in private, not that he held an opinion of more than annoyance one way or another. Odd to realize how much the slip had bothered him, as there was definitely no one nearby.

Then he almost laughed out loud, something which would've likely sent Tokio running for the hills. Was the small woman behind him- jealous- in some way? This humoured him greatly. His face remained impassive. He and the cook spent equal parts of their time arguing and angry as conversing like civilized people, but something about Shinoda Yaso had kept him returning to the Ueno kitchens rather frequently.

_The cigarettes,_ he decided.

"Sentimental," he commented to her dryly, concerning her comment. "Too sentimental for your own good." She only replied with a little –hmph- sound, and continued to cut away hair.

"Well, rumor has it that Shinoda-san is going to move to the Kurasawa residence in September, you know." No sign of surprise from him, although she was fairly sure that Yaso wouldn't have mentioned it to Saitou.

"It's her lookout," he replied after a pause that ran slightly too long.

"Yes," she agreed nonchalantly, "I'm sure the kitchens at the Kurasawa house will be much more suitable to her, once our cook, Ran, leaves for Tokyo." Unlike Yaso would have been doing, he could tell Tokio wasn't trying to get a rise out of him. But she was trying to do something, although it really made no sense to him. Another pause. "I'll be glad to see her come," she sighed at last, voice happy, but with strange undertones of what he could only decide to be regret.

"Aa," he replied, and they fell into silence again, Tokio concentrating on his hair. He watched the river go by with studious calm. "There's a girl here," he began after quite a while, "named Katsu?"

"Yes," she replied, mildly surprised, if he judged by her tone of voice. "What of it?"

He shrugged his shoulders, which earned him a gentle touch on his shoulder again, cautioning him to stay still while she cut a section of hair near his neck. When it became apparent that he wasn't going to say anything, she continued, "She's an orphan here, under Kurasawa-san's care. I'm not really sure of her history, I'm afraid."

"It matters not to me," he replied, closing his eyes lightly as her fingers skimmed away the excess hair from his neck. Definitely, he decided, much better than the last time someone had cut his hair.

"You asked," she replied tartly, resuming her clipping.

"My sister's name is Katsu," he volunteered unexpectedly, startling both her and himself. "Hearing the name brought back memories."

He felt the scissors leave his hair and heard her sit back, exhaling lightly. "Memories are dangerous things, Saitou Hajime," she warned, almost more to herself than him. There was another silence, as her gaze fell upon the careless, placid river, followed by an almost violent continuation of hair-clipping.

"Especially memories of our antics as children," he continued as if she had not spoken, "Katsu was always more headstrong than I was. More pigheaded."

She snorted, rather unladylike, in disbelief, and he felt more than heard that the conversation was unsettling to her. "Now that seems a tall tale to tell, Saitou-san."

Saitou smirked. "She would've enjoyed meeting you," he replied, the praise falling just short of an insult.

"I think one of you is enough for me, thank you, Saitou-san. It would be too much for my health to be jumping off of too many more buildings, now, I'm afraid."

"I take no responsibility for that," he replied in the same mocking tone of voice, "It was merely your sentimental over-reaction to my presence."

"You must have many happy memories to speak so lightly of them, Saitou-san," she said instead of continuing that line of conversation.

"No more nor less than any other," he told her, shrugging once again. Her tongue clicked in warning and her hand fell fimly back on his shoulder again.

"You're like a little boy, squirming so," she scolded him, transparently trying to stay one step ahead of any kind of deeper conversation. "And a little boy, to be so trusting. You barely know me, Saitou Hajime, not someone to be telling your stories to."

"I know very few others here well," he replied comfortably, "Close to none, as a matter of fact. Through matter of choice I prefer it that most flinch away from me, Takagi-san. It weeds out the idiots."

"I have noticed that you do not tolerate fools well," she said cautiously, searching for any polite way out of the conversation. It wasn't comfortable for her to talk about herself- no sense in exposing herself to whatever this man was.

"Astute of you," he replied, wishing once again that he had a cigarette.

"My gratitude," she murmured sarcastically in return, matching his tone, and cut his hair so that his long, thin bangs fell across his face once again. Once again, her fingers brushed slowly across his neck, attempting to catch all of the stray hairs. "I believe I am finished here." Rolling up the cloth expertly, so that none of the hair would escape when she removed it from around his shoulders, she reached around him, over his shoulders, with both arms to remove the cloth.

For a moment, as she pulled the cloth away from him, she smelled his smell of soap, cigarettes and a vague spicy aroma that always seemed to cling to him, and she felt the urge to replace her arms around his shoulders and hold him close to her. From the look on his face, inscrutiable to almost anyone else, he was thinking of his sister again, memories not as happy as the ones he had briefly mentioned to her.

Tokio placed a hand softly on his shoulder, debating whether to intrude on such an intimate moment, or just leave him there and go find the children. "I'm going to go find the children, Saitou-san," she told him quietly, reasoning that if he didn't hear her, he was too deep in memories for it to be polite to awaken him from them. "Don't lose yourself," she whispered, even quieter than before, knowing how memories worked on a person.

She felt his hand cover hers for a moment, its dry warmth enveloping hers, then push her away from him, as if he didn't want to force her to leave him, but had no choice.

Well, she reflected, he didn't, really. He had been seeing Yaso for a little while now, and... she let it all stop at that, shaking herself as she rose to her feet to clear the dizziness in her head. Men were dangerous, she reminded herself firmly, and left the little clearing under the trees.

"We're just a pair of sentimental fools," she whispered to herself scathingly as she left.

The wolf smirked as his ears picked up the whisper not meant for him with his exceptional hearing.


	5. Chapter 5

"I'm doing quite well, as usual, Tokio-chan," Yaso assured her a week later, as they sat eating buns and drinking tea. "My preparations to move up the hill are nearly complete. They have a replacement for me here and everything. Ueno-san doesn't want to see me leave, she says," the woman was putting herself in as flattering a light as possible, but Tokio let her have her fun. Yaso wasn't always so carefree and intimate, although they'd recently become friends on a personal-name basis. "But she knows it would be rude to send anyone else up to Kurasawa-san."

"You are very accomplished in the kitchen, to be sure, Yaso-san," Tokio admitted, bowing her head slightly, a smile playing on her lips. When she knew her small friend wasn't looking, Yaso's eyebrow arched. An actual, pure smile from Tokio, not laced with bitterness or sarcasm? For all her politeness, the woman had almost as much bitterness locked away inside of her as Yaso did, which was an incredible feat by Shinoda Yaso's own admission.

"Something- someone- else on your mind today, Tokio-chan, eh? You seem very happy."

"Oh," she flushed, and struggled to get herself under control. Yaso was not fooled for a moment, "Ah, no. No one in particular."

"Tokio-chan has a lover, perhaps? Hmm?" Yaso leaned forward conspiratorially. "Tell Auntie Yaso every little detail, Tokio-chan, ne?"

Tokio flushed deeper, sensing trouble. "There's no lover for me, Yaso-san. Takagi Tokio does not have lovers."

"Ah ha," Yaso sat back again, feeling victorious, "So it's a _secret_ lover! Don't try to pull one over on me, Tokio-chan. I can see right through these things."

"Not a lover," Tokio admitted at last, "Truly. It's not a crime to have had someone catch one's eye, though. Nothing shall come of it. If it was, I would tell you the name."

Yaso mock-sighed, "Well Tokio-chan, if you won't trust me to tell me who it is, I will just have to find out elsewhere. Like your stoic bodyguard, Fujita Goro, hmm? He would know if you've been sneaking off to moon over a man!"

Tokio's eyes widened very slightly, and she put an iron clamp upon the uprising in her stomach. "Fujita-san? Surely he doesn't know where I am every moment," she said mildly, sipping her tea and making it into a joke. "He seems to have taken a liking to you, though..." She trailed off suggestively, praying her gamble would work.

Yaso fell for it completely, much to her relief. If her friend had been in a more pensive or sarcastic mood, the gamble would've failed. "Ah ha ha, well Tokio-chan, I suppose you could say that."

"You'll invite me to the wedding, of course," Tokio put in, again mildly, "And allow dear Auntie Tokio to watch over your children for you."

Yaso's laugh rang very slightly false, but Tokio didn't pursue it, in case her luck thus far reversed itself. "Of course, Tokio-chan. If you remain an old maid like you so obviously intend to, we'll take good care of you."

Before Yaso could continue back to asking Tokio about her 'secret lover', Tokio's eyebrows narrowed as she sniffed the air. "Yaso-san," she asked seriously after a moment, "Do you smell smoke?"

"Cigarette, or wood-," Tokio cut her off as she jumped to her feet. "Go right outside, Yaso-san, and wait, please."

"If the building truly is burning, Tokio-chan, you shouldn't be the one to risk-."

"Go, Yaso-san! If you please!" The slight woman was already sliding the shoji open and closing it behind her, cutting off any argument. Yaso could smell the smoke well now, as well as hear shouts outside. Amazing that she had not heard them before.

Something fell to the floor directly above with a _thunk_ and Yaso took Tokio's advice and fled through the side

door.

Outside, people were beginning to shout and show signs of concern at the gathering smoke. Most people were out in the fields, it being midday and approaching harvest time, but a few were still inside, mostly on the lower level inside of rooms.

How long had the fire, wherever it was, been burning? Tokio asked a bit dazedly to herself. And where was it coming from? The Ueno house was old, certainly. Hurrying along the engawa to the next room, she shouted out her usual entrance greeting and threw open the door.

Three women inside, talking while embroidering, looked up, surprised. "There's a fire in the house somewhere," Tokio told them quickly. "Smoke is penetrating the house. Please, you must leave until the source is found."

The three looked at themselves and Tokio, a little disbelievingly, "Yes, miss," one said, and they slowly began to gather their things.

"Please," Tokio begged, "Hurry, and alert the men in the fields, if you please?" And Fujita Goro, she wanted to add, but refrained, knowing she depended too much on him. "And the Kurasawas." One of the women had the decency to take her seriously, and jumped to her feet, seeing the look on Tokio's face.

"We will. Come, ladies," addressing Tokio again, she asked, "Will you continue to alert the others?"

"Of course," she agreed quickly, and was gone.

--

Outside, Yaso came skidding to a halt a safe distance away from the house, meeting up with a few of the residents of the home who had already heard or begun to suspect, due to the excess smoke. Wheeling around to look up at the house, she gasped in a breath.

_Mistress Ueno's room_, she realized. The window was open, and smoke was streaming out. After one step back towards the house, she realized that she, especially, would do very little good if the air was bad, and Tokio didn't need a woman with a coughing fit on her hands.

"Someone go get help!" She shouted out, as loud as she could. The people clustering around her began to murmur. "There's a fire on the second floor!" Exasperated, she pointed to three ladies who had recently emerged, "You, go to the Kurasawa residence and get as much help there as you find! Run, ladies!" The three began to protest, but the businesslike Yaso had already turned away. "And you two!" She called out to a small clump of men, "Get help from the fields!"

The authoritative tone in her voice produced almost immediate results from the men, and seeing that, the women hurried off too, up the road. "Is there anyone willing to go back in and help Takagi-san get people out?" She called out. Most were frustratingly silent.

--

It had been so dry lately, Tokio reflected as she worked her way down the first floor, pushing open doors methodically, that the wood and rice paper the house was largely made of was going up in smoke all too quickly. The last few months, little rain had fallen.

She opened the door on a group of elderly women, who were inside for the warmest part of the day, "There's a fire," she explained patiently, "I can help you out, if we hurry."

--

"Shinoda-san!" She heard a wolf-like voice bark out from somewhere behind her, and exhaled deeply in relief. Turning on her heels, she was grasped roughly by the shoulders.

"Fujita-san," she replied as politely as she could, considering he was shaking her. Kurasawa Keiko's voice, overshadowed sometimes by her husband's, had come to restore order and work on putting out the house. Yaso was glad for it. She seemed to be more tired than she had previously realized- he was shouting at her, and she could barely make out what he was saying. Yaso closed her eyes. _Come on, old girl,_ she cajoled herself, _don't give out now._ "What?" She asked, "I-."

"Tokio, woman! Where is Tokio?"

She blinked, passing right over the familiarity, "Tokio-chan? She's inside the building, helping people out."

Fujita let her go as roughly as if he'd been burned, and started striding toward the house. Lost in the hubbub, no one seemed to notice as Yaso reached out and grabbed his hand, health-episode passing. "Goro-san," she said, in an attempt to calm him, "You will help Tokio-chan more if you stay out here. If she needs us, surely she will signal."

Fujita turned and snarled, uncontained as an angry wolf, and Yaso let him go to jump out of the way as he mindlessly tried to attack her. "Fujita-san!" She shouted, but he was already striding off again. Sighing in exasperation and squashing down her fear, she hurried across the field after him.

Moments later, however, Yaso lost him as Kurasawa Keiko intercepted her. "Shinoda-san, I've heard that Tokio-chan was visiting you at the time?" Motherly concern was evident on her face. "Fujita-san said as much, at any rate."

"Yes, ma'am," Yaso replied, bowing a little, "She's inside, helping people out right now. I tried to convince her not to do it, but... if you know her, you'll know that she's very headstrong when people are in need of aid."

Keiko nodded, a little wearily. "Of course."

"If it helps, ma'am, Fujita-san just went in to locate her and offer his assistance."

Kurasawa Keiko sighed. "We are so indebted to Fujita-san," she said at last, after gazing at the house, "For taking care of our Tokio-chan so many times. He is very protective of her, is he not? He has picked a good way to pay his debt to us, by watching over her."

Yaso bowed again, to cover the thoughts that launched toward her face, as she remembered her- well, lover, such as it was- screaming Tokio's name at her. Singleminded dedication to Tokio's protectection to repay debt to his hosts? Kurasawa-san turned away, and Yaso's eyebrow went up.

--

Saitou found her inside, calmly leading three ladies out through the main gates, paying unfailing courtesy to them as they stopped to complain of their aches and pains and fear.

"Tokio," he growled, slowing down from his sprint into the building. Tokio took one look at him, and turned to the women.

"I apologize sincerely," she began, "But I must depart you here. Please, exit through the gate and join the others across the field," bowing to the women, she watched them go for a moment before Saitou grabbed her upper arms, pulling her closer to him and looking down in an intimidating manner.

"Tokio," he began again roughly, "Go with them, _now._ You are not to stay in this burning building." People from other rooms swarmed past them now, and he dragged her off to the side. She had never seen him so angry and disturbed before, and she knew he wasn't aware of just how much he was giving away.

"I have to help the people still inside," she told him gently, trying to extricate herself from his grasp, to no avail. "There are children, and the elderly."

He looked away from her to growl. "Tokio, idiotic woman, this building is on fire."

Tokio licked her lips, which had become very dry. "Saitou-sa- Hajime!" His first name got his attention from her. "We're wasting time."

"If you promise to go out, and stay safely out," he growled back, "I will evacuate the rest of the house."

"I'll help you," she protested, "We'll finish faster that way-."

"Tokio," he replied, now in a more deadly voice, "Need I walk you out?"

One look into his eyes and her argument died on her lips. There was no winning against that look in his eyes. Closing her eyes briefly, she muttered, "Fine." Breaking out of his grip, she shouted, "Be careful!" At his back. He turned to make sure she actually left.

_Sentimental_, she scolded herself as she hurried across the field, seeing the lone figure of Yaso standing slightly apart from everyone else. If the voice in her head took on Saitou's tone, she paid it no mind. Yaso walked out to meet her when Tokio got close enough, took one look at the woman, and allowed her to just keep walking into her open arms.

"I take it Fujita-san found you," Yaso commented dryly, stroking the girl's smoky hair.

The other woman nodded into Yaso's shoulder. Tokio didn't have any tears, and Yaso just waited until Tokio had her emotions under control once more. Yaso took uncharacteristic pity on the girl. No reason to tell her of Fujita's odd behavior at that particular moment. They would bring it up later.

Tokio was half in her own world as she turned to survey the house. He had been so familier with her she realized, and she, her cheeks flushed a little, with him. She hoped they had given nothing away to anyone who might overhear, but the situation between them had suddenly grown infinitely more dangerous.

She was immediately snapped out of her thoughts as she saw the second floor being consumed by flame. "Yaso-san!" She cried, "I had no idea it was so bad!"

Kurasawa Keiko, from behind her, reached out and grabbed her hand, "I'm so glad Fujita-san found you, Tokio-chan." Tokio turned a little and blinked a couple times, trying to get her eyes to tell her who it was.

"I owe him many thanks, Kurasawa-san," she agreed companionably, slipping into her sheath of calm automatically.

"I will be glad to tell Heijiemon that you are safe," her mistress told her, and disappeared again. Tokio took no more notice, turning back to the house.

"Have you seen Ueno-san?" Tokio asked her companion in a slightly deadened voice.

"Ueno-san?" Yaso asked, startled to realize she hadn't thought about the lady of the house and her servants until that moment. "Why, no."

Both women saw the figure suddenly emerge at the open second-floor window, waving her arms, as if on some kind of sadistic cue.

"Tokio-chan!" Yaso yelled in frustration as Tokio ran back toward the house once more.


	6. Chapter 6

Hello again! My apologies for taking so long to update, it's finals week and I'm quite busy. I really hope you're enjoying the story. I've read many really wonderful stories about this couple and wanted to try my hand at writing one, but make it a little different, if possible. Thus, I'm trying to add more softness and emotion into Saitou's personality. Though he may be a gruff man, history suggests that he did feel emotion toward both Tokio and Yaso, neither of whom would probably permit him to just be aloof all the time… Please, please review with your comments. I really enjoy hearing feedback. –Murasaki

Saitou Hajime was beginning to suspect that the building was largely doomed, although attempts were being made to put out the flames. He was just emerging from the last door on the first floor when he thought he heard scampering up the steps to his left. Immediately, he shook his head. No one in their right mind would be running up the steps, not with the fire so in control there.

"Damn it all, Tokio-chan!" A voice screamed from nearby, and a female figure pounded right past him, not appearing to see him at all. "Get back here right now! There's nothing you can- let _go_ of me, Fujita-san!" He had reached out and grabbed Shinoda Yaso by the shoulder as she'd attempted to fly up the steps.

"Go," he said, voice deadly, "Back outside."

"I don't think you understand!" The woman screamed back into his face, "Takagi Tokio just beat feet up these stairs!" In a more normal situation, his eyebrow would've arched at her choice of slightly rural words. Now, however, he just thrust her back.

"I understand all too well," he replied, still in the voice devoid of any good emotion, "I will go after her. Back outside. Now."

Yaso screamed a few more profanities in his face before fleeing, seeing the obvious gesture he made. As she left, he eased his hand back off of his sword.

He heard something buckle, crack, and groan. Wood, more specifically.

--

Tokio could barely draw a breath as she hurried down the hallway, right toward the origin of the flames. _It had been much too dry these past few months_, she told herself again. Using her sleeve as a filter, she pressed on, her only goal to get to Ueno Yumi and whomever else was in the room before... something happened.

The floorboards creaked and groaned beneath her, reminding her of how long this part of the building was likely to have been on fire.

"Tokio!" She heard a man shout, angry as all hell on earth, but she knew the smoke shrouded her. Dropping to the floor, she hurried forward on her hands and knees, attempting to suck in the cleanest air possible.

"Ueno-san!" Tokio called out.

--

These were like the dreams of hell he had, Saitou reflected as he hit the top of the stairs, immediately trying to divine the smoke to see where Tokio had gone. Down the hallway, he decided, and strode off with firm steps.

At some point, he realized that Yaso had suddenly learned that day much more than was good for either one of them. All three of them, really. He cursed softly under his breath.

"Ueno-san!" He heard Tokio's voice, followed by coughing, up the hallway. Dropping to the floor himself, he began to crawl forward, ignoring the fact that breathing was almost out of the question.

"Tokio!" He shouted again, but there was resolutely no answer. _Didn't she realize this was insane?_

--

Tokio wrenched the burning shoji door open with her bare hands, biting back all but one scream. "Ueno-san?! Are you in here?" She shouted, as much as her deprived lungs would allow her.

There was brightness coming from over by the window. "Who is that?" An elderly voice called.

"Takagi Tokio, Ueno-san. You must get out of here!"

"The floor is unstable and burning through, Takagi-san," the voice replied resignedly, pausing to cough vehemently. "I lost one of my girls through it already. Bad wood, I think. We were thinking of replacing it. Hana is still with me now, however."

Before Ueno-san could talk her out of it, or Saitou Hajime could show up at the door, Tokio squared her shoulders and sprinted across the faulty floor. It was mostly at this point that she realized that she had lost her shoes, although she had no idea where. At the other side of the room, she almost ran into Ueno-san and a crying girl at her side.

Thinking quickly, Tokio looked at the drop out of the window, then grabbed the western-style curtain around it, yanking off of the wall, partially aflame. "Ueno-san, I will hold the curtain on this end, and you will slide down it until you reach the end. At that point, you must let go and fall to the ground. It is essential to remember to bend your knees, to avoid injury. Hana-san will be immediately behind you. You must not argue or hesitate."

Ueno-san did no such thing as arguing. "Takagi Tokio," she said as she slung herself over the windowframe, "I know of your history and connections. I'm sure our Teru-hime would be very proud of you. Hana, obey this girl unquestionably." She was gone.

"Get up, Hana-san," Tokio commanded, forcing the girl up as soon as she felt Ueno-san's weight leave the rope-curtain. With trembling hands, the girl obeyed, copying her mistress. When they were both down, Tokio dragged the curtain back in and turned around, shouting, "Hajime?" As loud as she could.

"At the door, Tokio," he replied, calmly if one did not know him.

"The floor in this room is bad- go back the way you came, while you still can!"

"Come to me, Tokio," he commanded, in his most intimidating voice. Her heart leapt up into her throat at those words, and she scolded herself for thinking improper thoughts, especially at a time like this.

"You're running out of air, Hajime!" She screamed to him, "Go back, now!"

Suddenly as a thunderclap, the tired floor gave way.

--

He heard her scream, and, on instinct, followed her as best he could- in this case, by jumping through the hole that Takagi Tokio had fallen through.

If the upper floor had been hellish, the dark, smouldering, smoke-filled place in which he burned his hands trying to find Tokio was the deepest, darkest pit of hell. Somehow, through his determination to find her, he realized he was losing consciousness.

Grabbing around blindly, he found smouldering hair. Continuing carefully down it, still half in the hairstyle Tokio had been in that morning, he found an unconscious face. It helped that he didn't know how much she was buried under until after he'd pulled her out with his bare hands.

"Tokio," he muttered, fighting the grey that threatened to consume him, "Tokio..." curling himself around the body, he kissed her cheek.

"Haji..." He heard her croak in no more than a whisper. "Hajime..." In the dark, his lips found hers even as he tried to find a foothold for himself, cradling the woman –his woman-, the wolf-part of his mind insisted stubbornly, gently in his arms.

"Do you trust me, Tokio?" He asked, aware that his voice came out as no more than a rasp, "I'm going to have to put you down. If this doesn't work," he laid his lips against her forehead, hearing her shudder his name as if she breathed it instead of the virtually nonexistent oxygen, "Then I will die with you."

"Haji... me," she rasped, but there was no time. Carefully, he laid her down again, trying his best to ignore her moans of fresh pain, and drew his sword to attack the exterior wall.

Yaso watched in emotionally overburdened disbelief, along with Kurasawa Keiko and everyone else from both households, as Tokio disappeared from the window, as the floor obviously fell through, as Ueno-san, sitting beside her best friend Keiko, shook her head very slightly. As time ticked by, but no one moved. Despite their efforts, there was nothing they could do for the house, and nothing for Fujita Goro and Takagi Tokio, who had seemingly sacrificed themselves to the blaze.

It made it all the worse for Yaso that she had known the motivations, Tokio's to protect her and, singlemindedly, to save Ueno-san and anyone else alive in the room with the open window, and Goro's to pursue Tokio, to pull her back from the brink of death- or join her in it.

As it appeared. Yaso blinked away tears, and realized she had not cried in a long time. Hope was fading even from Kurasawa-san's face.

Suddenly, the exterior wall exploded, and Yaso jumped to her feet in disbelief. To all appearances, Kurasawa Keiko lost all ability of movement in her knees, but Yaso had always been a woman of action. The moment that Fujita Goro hit the ground, sheltering the woman nestled very firmly in his arms from the impact, skidding away from the building largely on his back, Yaso was running forward, eyes not leaving the man on the ground, or the woman that he held tightly to his chest.

When she got there, throwing herself to her knees on the ground beside them, she heard Tokio taking sobbing, tortured breaths, unable to tell if she was trying to say something or simply breathing hard. Instead of staring, she attempted to smile at Fujita. "You're alive," she whispered, "Both of you." She hadn't realized she was crying until Fujita Goro lifted a hand away from Tokio, and, with one very dirty thumb, brushed her tears aside.

"Idiot," he breathed, unable to speak any louder, "Hurts too much for me to be dead."

Yaso smiled weakly and gripped his hand in her own.

No one else was in the room when Tokio woke up, as far as she could tell. A quick look at the lighting signified that it was late at night, with one single lamp burning, off in a corner.

"Tokio-chan," someone said in a low voice, "You need to sit up and drink some water." Yaso's face came into view, and hefted her one-armed into a sitting position. Tokio's mind was fuzzy, as if it was still filled with smoke. She coughed weakly and moaned a little in protest of the movement. "Come on, Tokio-chan."

"Haji...me? Haji..."

Yaso's eyebrows furrowed. "Beginning? Tokio-chan, what are you trying to say?" Shaking her friend ever so gently, she prodded again, "You need water, Tokio-chan, and more sleep."

Tokio's eyes slid more into focus, with great effort, shown by her physical shivering to maintain an operating level of consciousness. "Yaso-san?" If her eyes widened very slightly, Yaso didn't notice.

"Aa, it's me, Tokio-chan. Please, drink this water."

Tokio shook her head violently. "Yaso-san, Fujita-san, how is he? Is he- he's not-."

Yaso couldn't help but smile at the memories, a small, soft smile. "Oh, Tokio-chan, Fujita-san is doing just fine. He's resting in another room right now." She smoothed the hair back from her friend's head. "He wanted to be allowed to see you the moment you awoke, I could tell. But Kurasawa-san gave him some special tea, to help him sleep. Perhaps later, I'll escort him in." At this, Tokio submitted herself to the water. "And you should thank him, Tokio-chan, don't forget! He saved your life. Kurasawa-san has already thanked him most profusely and honored him greatly for repaying the family so. He and I will get along well in this household."

Tokio felt the clouds of smoke take hold of her thoughts again, perhaps in self defense. As Yaso laid her down again, she turned her head toward the wall. "I wish you the best of luck, Yaso-san..." She whispered.

"Sleep well, Tokio-chan," the older woman returned in quiet reply.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Hello, everyone, sorry for the delay. I temporarily lost my laptop for about a month, but things are better now. I hope you enjoy these next couple chapters. Please review, for good or ill, and let me know what you think! Thank you! –Murasaki

August 24, 1871 (Meiji 4)

Good, dutiful girls did not do this, Tokio reflected guiltily as she slowly ascended the ladder to the rooftop, underneath the flawless night sky. Good, dutiful girls who did not want to hurt their friends, or lose the only home they had, did not do this. In a way, once the next day was over, a burden would be lifted upon Tokio, a burden of a shameful sort, only to be replaced by another burden, one which she did not dare to even contemplate.

Fujita Goro, Saitou Hajime, was not there, as she knew he would not be. Never would he be the one to arrive first, never would he be the one to be caught waiting. _Saitou Hajime_, she reflected, _the last night I may allow myself to use that name_. Another wave of guilt cascaded over her as she reminded herself sharply that the man was as good as married. "Perhaps I ought to leave now," she muttered to herself, "I am asking for too much."

They had moved any nighttime meetings, instead to the rooftop directly above the house, to the roof of an adjacent storage shed, so as not to attract more attention. Due to Tokio's honed sense of guilt, their meetings had been very infrequent over the past year. However, unlike before the fire, Tokio could not prevent Saitou Hajime from speaking to her. It became harder and harder for her to avoid him- and she greatly suspected that he intended that to be the case.

He had asked her to come, she reminded herself. She would never have done it, but he'd explicitly asked her to come this night, not even through one of those 'mutual looks' that seemed to determine all the other times, but in actual words, in a low whisper by her ear when he had been sure no one was watching. If he had thought no one was watching, she believed him- he had an impeccable sense of gazes.

"Tokio," she heard a low whisper, and masked her not-unpleasant shiver. Only one more night, she reminded herself. One more night, to have with him, and one more night to have anything to look forward to. Carefully, glad that the Kurasawas believed in gently sloping roofs, she turned to face him.

"H-Hajime," she replied in kind, ashamed at the catch that her voice had. "I-," but she had nothing else to say to follow that, so she fell silent once again. Almost primly, she folded her hands and looked down at the roof. Unperturbed, Saitou spread out a blanket on the tiles. The movement caught her attention, and she stared.

"Come sit, woman," he said gruffly, landing gracefully on the cushioning he had made. Numbly, she followed orders, sitting next to him gracefully on the roof. A moment later, he had thrown another blanket around both their shoulders. Tokio's face grew warm as shoulderblades touched.

"So, you're to be married tomorrow," she began, as a way to put some mental distance between them. "To Yaso-san. How very exciting."

"Hn," he replied, sounding bored. While she wasn't paying attention, his arm had snuck around her waist, and soon she was leaning completely against him, sheltered by his arm around her. "She has no guardians of her own. The Uenos and the Kurasawas both asked me to agree, and I did."

"Yes," she replied demurely, "Yaso-san is lucky to have you. Just as I am lucky to have the Kurasawas."

"Tokio," he whispered, in the closest thing to exasperation as she had ever heard him get.

"Hajime," she countered, bringing his name up against him like her shield.

He kissed her softly, but persistently, before she could think of anything else to say, forcing her face to turn up toward his. Tokio's mind felt numb when they broke apart. She felt tears coming, as if watching herself from a great distance, and started trying to swallow them, fighting not to cry in front of him, not to look childish. One shaky sob escaped, and she clamped her mouth shut, allowing no more to come, eyes narrowing in determination.

"You're too much for this life," he said as if in some kind of answer, cryptically. "It's better this way."

Confused, she peered at him, "Whatever are you talking about?"

"It's better not to feel so much, woman," came the reply, again.

She was silent then, but he knew she understood perfectly well. Snaking her own arm around his waist, she leaned in toward him, smelling the unique scent of spices, cigarettes, and cleanliness that he always sported. "It's better not to say too much, either," she replied at last.

He responded by kissing her again, and Shinoda Yaso watched from the engawa as the two moonlit figures sank down to lie side by side, entwined in each other. Although she was too distant to hear the words Takagi Tokio and Fujita Goro murmured to each other, there were no two ways to interpret what was going on between them.

It always turned out like this, she thought to herself as she turned to walk back inside. The ones you grew to like always had to learn lessons in ways you wished they didn't. Yaso couldn't afford to give up the insurance the wedding afforded her- Tokio would just have to learn that you couldn't always have what you wanted. That life was not kind, or fair, or brilliant, or beautiful, but a tempstress who lured the unsuspecting into the realms of pain and unhappiness. This would teach Tokio that she had to guard herself at all times- Yaso didn't like having to teach her young friend such hard lessons, but she knew one day Tokio would thank her for it.

As she slid the shoji behind her quietly shut, her heart softened a little. She had no need to mention to either that she had seen them, or that she knew of their romance, so long as it ended- and she was sure it would- with the wedding the next day. They had been almost impossibly discreet, and no one, as far as she knew, had detected them. After tomorrow, chances were, it wouldn't matter anyway.

The next day dawned bright and early- too bright and too early, to Tokio. She awoke still in her kimono from the night before, with Hajime's scent still clinging to her like the sorrowful remnants of temple incense after a festival or funeral. As she opened her eyes a little more, woke up more fully, she realized that she still wore his coat, which he had draped over her to keep her warm up on the roof. Somehow, she didn't think he would accidentally have let her leave with it still on.

"Not Hajime," she breathed aloud, "Fujita-san." Realizing she had spoken aloud, she looked around, but no one else was yet awake. Rising silently, she changed into her spare kimono, and exited through the other futons of still-sleeping women.

Outside, it was early enough in the morning that the air still had a crisp, cool feel to it. No one was outside, but Tokio knew that people were most likely already awake and working in the kitchens for the ceremony that day. She would soon have to go wake Kurasawa-san, and Yaso, to help her prepare for the long yet joyous day ahead of her.

Sorrow wrapped around Tokio's thin frame like a cloak suddenly, like clouds descending upon her from the heavens. Closing her eyes, she breathed in deeply and exhaled, long and slow, folding her hands in front of her demurely, before walking down the engawa.

Saitou Hajime heard them muttering nearby before he even opened his eyes. They said nothing, as usual, of consequence; for some reason, however, he was irrationally irritated by it this morning.

"At least when he moves out, we'll have a bit more room in here."

"… and that vile attitude. I still remember how he scared that cute Takagi girl on our first day here."

"What a wolf. She's quite the looker, if a bit skinny."

"Everyone's skinny these days, ahou."

"Hey, I didn't mean it like that…!"

"Shut up." Everyone paused when they realized it hadn't been one of the others who had spoken. Saitou smirked as he rolled onto his side, looking away from them, feeling their stolen glances on his back.

Silence descended upon the room once more, but the wolf did not sleep again. If he closed his eyes and lay very still, he could still feel her body curled up beside his, fitting the sharp angles of his body with the smoother curves of hers. The little bird, nesting by the wolf. He could still see the tears on her face, painted on the inside of his eyelids, the ones she had tried to hide from him, late in the night. He could still feel the shivers she had given, despite the blankets, the shaking that had caused him to surrender her jacket.

It mattered not. He had a spare. Opening his eyes again, he turned over onto his back, and sat up.

Shinoda Yaso looked up from her preparations to be blinded by the sun as it flooded through the newly-opened crack in the shoji doors. From the silhouette in the sunbeams, she deduced that it was Kurasawa Keiko. Yaso felt the other girls that were helping her with her makeup and kimono pause until their eyes adjusted to the light.

"Please pardon my rudeness, Shinoda-san."

"Ah, Kurasawa-san, please come in. I was hoping that perhaps you could release Tokio-chan from her other duties to attend me here? She is one of my dearest friends, if you will pardon the favor."

Yaso watched Kurasawa-san freeze, eyes widening a little in confusion, and, a moment later, mouth tightening in sudden understanding about the situation. "Pardon me, Shinoda-san, I must have misunderstood… Did you say that Tokio-chan was not here with you?"

"I assumed she was with you, and was therefore unable to assist me. Is she with Fujita-san? I know that they are good companions, of a sort."

Kurasawa Keiko misinterpreted Yaso's play on words, as the latter had rather intended her to do. Not bothered by her completely innocent conclusions, and most troubled by the more pressing problems, Kurasawa-san's mouth tightened a little again. "Hmm, I suppose. It's only logical- perhaps he and those attending him needed her to fetch something, or take a measurement? I will send her to you immediately. In fact, I'll go over to his room right away. Surely, if nothing else, I can help them so that she may come here."

"You are very kind, Kurasawa-san. I am in your debt."

"It's no trouble, Shinoda-san. May you have a happy marriage."

Yaso sighed deeply inside her head. She refused to believe that she would have this kind of trouble with Tokio and Goro after their wedding, but if Tokio mishandled herself now, Kurasawa-san might begin to understand more than needed to be understood.

At the door to the new room that the Kurasawas had cleaned out for the new Fujita couple, Kurasawa Keiko tapped on the doorframe before calling out, "Please pardon my rudeness!" and sliding open the door. Inside Fujita Goro was sitting, surrounded by some men and a few women doing fittings. The woman didn't even try to step into the room, as crowded as it was. For his part, Fujita-san sat in the middle, in front of a mirror, looking vaguely annoyed at all the people that had come to reside in the room.

"Kurasawa-san," the man Keiko knew as Shirou-san said from his seat near the door, catching everyone's attention and quieting all the conversation inside the room.

"Please forgive my interruption. I was wondering if perhaps any of you had seen our Takagi Tokio-san today. Shinoda-san is looking for her help. Perhaps she stopped by in here? Fujita-san? Perhaps she came in to take a measurement?"

The man had tensed a little, but the voice that emerged was completely normal- uncaring and stoic, as usual. "No. I have not seen her."

"You have not seen her at all this morning, Kurasawa-san?" Aomura Yuuna asked in her usual demure way, from her place near Fujita-san's sleeve, pinning and sewing a last-minute tear.

"Not at all. She did not attend to me this morning- I assumed she was with Shinoda-san. But Shinoda-san has not seen her at all, either- she assumed that she was with me. You're sure no one here has seen her?"

Every head in the room shook at their own pace, but no affirmative answers came forth. "Well, not to worry," Kurasawa-san replied to all of them, sticking a smile on her face. "I'm sure she's around here somewhere, ne? Thank you for your time."

Echoes of "Farewell, Kurasawa-san," and Fujita's cold silence followed her out of the door.

In the end, Kurasawa-san was forced to give up in her search for Tokio, assuming that she had gone out on some kind of errand. It did not occur to her that her servant and almost-daughter might not return in time for the wedding. It was inconceivable to her that Tokio would miss the joyous occasion of the marriage between two of her greatest friends that Keiko knew of.

Saitou Hajime looked up at the noonday sun, as the people assisting him prepared to move himself and his wife to be over to the shrine, where the marriage rites would take place. Shirou had agreed with his muttered request to keep a lookout for Tokio's safe return, but he had not yet returned to say that she had come back from wherever she had gone yet. He couldn't decide whether to curse himself or not for involving Shirou- the man suspected nothing, of that Saitou was sure, but the wolf was unused to leaving ways open for people to guess his feelings and intentions with. Shirou had promised to be discreet, and he had proven himself to be worthwhile, at least, in Saitou's eyes, but he firmly believed a job was not done completely right unless one did it himself.

_Damn it,_ he cursed to himself, _where is the woman?_ With one last furious glare at the sun- of course she would go out and land herself in some kind of trouble on the one day when he would be helpless to find her. Sure that everyone was preoccupied with something involving his robes, his eyelids flickered shut for just a moment, pale blue lines on them from starving his body from enough sleep all those years- until he could no longer feel the effects- standing out in the only sign of the wolf's distress. _Tokio,_ his inner voice growled, _don't you _dare_ do this to me today, woman._

"Fujita-san? Is everything all right?"

He turned to look at one of the men holding up his robes, so a maid could make up a stitch that had come loose. Saitou's lip curled into his usual smirk, defending his real emotions as it so often did. "Just lamenting the infernal racket you idiots make," he replied dryly, before closing his eyes again lightly to prove his point.

He couldn't help it. Deep down, he did care for the little bird, after all.


	8. Chapter 8

Horses hooves clattered from the road coming out of town. Tokio heard them, and shifted the traveling cloak around her shoulders and head a little more securely and continued to plod along like a man as well as she could. Underneath the cloak, she gripped the long, thin knife she'd taken from the Kurasawas' kitchen, ready to use her skills she had learned at Crane Castle to defend herself, if necessary, from anyone who thought a woman traveling alone could be easily taken advantage of.

She didn't need protection, she told herself firmly, even as the image of Saitou Hajime flashed through her mind. She got so caught up in thinking about him, she didn't realize she needed to be on her guard until the carriage was already almost pulled to a stop beside her. Cursing herself, she tensed her muscles to make a dive into the brush by the side of the road, when a loud, clear voice rang out from the carriage, as simultaneously the door was thrown open. "Stop right there, Lady Takagi!"

Yaso looked up at him very swiftly, when no one else was really paying attention to them. The rites were to begin soon, and everyone was bustling around putting the finishing touches on the couple, and organizing the guests, mostly the households of both families, Ueno and Kurasawa. "No sign of her yet?" She asked, hope in her voice.

"No," he muttered, careful not to snap at her, although his nerves were absolutely on edge. "It seems she's been gone since early this morning."

"A long time to run an errand," Yaso commented obliquely, looking down at the floor again. "I do hope she's alright. She wouldn't miss our wedding, would she?"

"I wouldn't mind missing it myself, just now," he replied sharply. Yaso flinched very, very slightly, and said no more.

"My gracious, Sada-chan, if you came all the way from the Kurasawas' residence today, you have covered many miles quickly indeed. Here it is, only midafternoon, and you are quite far out of Goko!" Tokio was still blinking in surprise as the carriage lurched into motion again, tongue unusually silenced in the presence of the company she now found herself in. Matsudaira Teru-hime clucked her tongue against her teeth and leaned back a little at the sight of the kitchen knife. "Not exactly the way you were taught to defend yourself, Sada-chan, but it'll do in a pinch, I suppose, won't it?"

"Pardon my infinite rudeness, Teru-hime, but how did you know the traveler was me? Were you searching for me?"

Teru flipped open her fan across her face and let out a hearty chuckle. Tokio knew that the appearance of modesty, before her at any rate, was one of Teru's unstated political satiric commentaries. "Tokioko, I don't need a formal introduction to know it's you. You really have forgotten how long we've known each other! I merely had to look out of the door to my carriage, to see that dusty traveler, and wonder to myself from the gate of his walk and the straight-backed slouch- I've never quite understood how you manage to pull it off, Tokioko, but it does work, perhaps a little too well- why my little Sada-chan was traveling alone?"

"Where are we headed now, Teru-hime?" Tokio asked, peering out of the window, hoping to stem the flow of questions she knew her friend would ask.

"At the next wide point in the road, we're turning you around and bringing you home. I'm quite disappointed in you, really, Sada-chan, I did work so hard to find a favorable place for you to get out of the fields from. Where did you think you were going, anyway? With the increased numbers of exiles like ourselves here, and unfavorable weather in the recent past, bandits have swarmed on the roads. A woman traveling alone with only a kitchen knife as a companion doesn't offer much of a threat- and much of a prize. If I can bring myself to admit that, Toki-chan, you most certainly can as well." A flick of her fan invited Tokio to laugh at the joke that was made at Teru's own expense. Tokio chuckled softly, politely.

"But honestly, Tokio-chan, you're like a little sister to me, sometimes. We've known each other for years. What made you leave the Kurasawas? Certainly traveling this far wasn't for an errand. I'm not a fool- why were you running away?"

Teru's directness and lack of demureness for a woman, Tokio thought, definitely had its advantages. It had its disadvantages, too- Teru always felt no compunction at asking and expecting answers from the most personal of questions.

"I'm afraid it's for reasons of a rather personal nature, if you'll pardon my rudeness, Teru-hime. I simply was so unhappy, I could not stay any longer."

"You'd be even less unhappy molested on the road, Tokioko. Tell me, it's about a man, isn't it. That's the only thing I could think of that could overwhelm you so much."

"Teru-chan!" Tokio near-scolded, much as she had done when Teru had almost stepped over the line in many public occasions. Teru had often thanked Tokio for keeping her in line in certain situations, when things were emotional for her. "I know that in your education you were taught to be less direct!"

"You sound like a schoolmarm, Sada-chan, dear," Teru informed her tartly, flicking her fan at Tokio. Despite the hard times for all of them, Teru still managed to find nice things to wear, and looked comparatively well-kept. "Perhaps it's that Fujita Goro that has your heart all in a twist? If I recall correctly, he's marrying another girl- a Shinoda?"

"How did you-," Tokio began, taken off guard, but then recovered in record time, face smoothing over to unreadability once more. "But of course you've kept up to date. Kurasawa-san must be very willing to keep you updated on my progress."

"Don't blame Kurasawa Keiko-san, Sada-chan. Of course I've been checking in about you. You were always able to pull off the appearance of a perfect lady with every impression of sincerity, but deep down I honestly believe you are just as socially maladjusted as I am."

"Teru-hime, many things you may be, socially maladjusted you are not."

"Don't contradict me, Sada-chan! That's not at issue here. So it is Fujita Goro-san." The honorific was slightly mocking on Teru's tongue, as it usually was. "I wonder how a war-worn ruffian caught the heart of my favorite lady-in-waiting, but love works in mysterious ways, doesn't it?"

Tokio was silent, knowing Teru's secrets by heart, but raised her eyebrows.

"Hush, Tokio-chan! But really, it is quite unfortunate that he is to be married. Had I known of any way to make you happy with him, I could've arranged a marriage match between you, I suppose, but he really is a bit of a nobody, and we have your station to take into consideration… But it's too late now, isn't it."

Tokio took a deep breath. "Teru-chan, you know I trust you more than anything. I would betray my promise to him to you, but you must keep it absolutely silent. You must not breathe a word- he was insistent upon that to me."

Teru's eyes shone. "Oh, Sada-chan, this must be good gossip! Of course I would never tell a soul, you know I wouldn't."

Tokio sighed again. "I know you wouldn't. His name isn't really Fujita Goro, Teru-chan."

The princess gasped. "A spy, then? Good gracious, Tokio-chan, the company you keep these days!"

Her servant winced, then scolded, "You know that was foolish, Teru-chan. I've changed my name, and I am no spy. The name that would seem familier to you is probably also not his birth name, but he was well known under it."

"What was it, then, Toki-chan? You're extending the suspense on purpose!" Teru's fan fluttered dramatically.

"His name is Saitou Hajime. He escorted-."

"-Yae-chan to the front! The Miburo!"

"Shinsengumi."

"Hai, hai. Oh, Tokioko, how very dangerous of you! A Shinsengumi captain!"

"Teru-chan, remember, not a soul…"

"Don't you worry, my dear. I'm just quite surprised, really. Takagi Tokio, falling in love with a warrior wolf. Certainly such a life will not afford you much peace."

"There's not a life to made of it, Teru-chan, so it doesn't much matter," Tokio sighed miserably. "Except for Shinoda Yaso."

Teru said nothing, but regarded her friend and companion sympathetically. Tokio looked out the window and saw the shrine in the near distance.

"Kurasawa Keiko-san, I have returned your Takagi-chan to you. My apologies, I was required to borrow her suddenly and quite secretly, for reasons that even now I cannot explain. I will send your household a gift this week to make up for my spontanaeity."

"Matsudaira Teru-hime!" Kurasawa-san bowed low to the princess. "Of course, she is yours before she is ours. We were merely worried for her safety. Perhaps you could tell her to check in on the soon-to-be-married couple, for they have been quite concerned that she was not going to make it for this day."

"I will do so, thank you," Tokio murmured from her place behind Teru-hime, and hurried off down the hall, leaving the vague lies of Teru-hime and the pleasantries of Kurasawa-san behind. They had arrived at the shrine with half an hour before the ceremony was due to begin- the rest of the household had been preparing for the gathering afterward all morning, and had arrived at the shrine two hours ago. The Kurasawas and the Uenos both wanted it done well, as both members of the union were respected within the households.

Fujita Goro and Shinoda Yaso were sitting, as bidden, off in the corner, forbidden to help in case they would harm their images. Tokio could sense the frosty silence between the two while she was still halfway across the room. Just as Yaso looked up, Tokio pasted a small, weak, but passable, smile on her face.

"Yaso-san! You look so lovely!" She remarked to the woman who was now looking at her, quite unamused. Tokio couldn't bring herself to even look at the other seated figure, instead taking Yaso's hands in hers. "I am so sorry to worry you, my princess called me away on very short notice. I am glad to have to returned in time, though. I would not miss the ceremony for the world."

Yaso smiled back at her, in a smile just as hollow as the younger woman's. Both seemed to realize the other's face was deceiving, but neither was willing to risk the explanations that would follow. "I'm glad you're safe, Tokio-chan. And I am glad that you are here now! I was beginning to worry myself, that you would miss this moment."

Tokio tried not to blush at the stare that the wolf had fixed upon the both of them. "And your husband-to-be looks wonderful, Yaso-san. He cleans up well, don't you think?"

"Oh, quite, Tokio-chan. I am quite happy to be married to him."

_Ah,_ Tokio thought to herself as she listened to her friend speak, _so that was what was troubling Yaso. She really wasn't happy to marrying Hajime- Fujita- in the first place. How… ironic._

"And I assume that you are ready to assume the duties of a married man, Fujita-san? You must understand how happy I am for you two. My friend Yaso-san cares for you, as you must care for her, and you will afford her much-needed protection in these most difficult times." Tokio couldn't meet his eyes, but she had expected that.

"I refuse to waste my time pontificating on pointless sentiments," he snapped back. "I am going out for air. I will return shortly- do not worry yourself, wife." The last word was biting, as he took to his feet and departed.

Miserably, Yaso watched him leave. "He's been this way all day long. Please, Tokio-chan, you must do something. He's always listened to you. At least for today, please make him civil."

Tokio's eyes lowered. She didn't want anything to do with it, but she knew that Yaso was desperate. Her proud, quiet friend would otherwise never beg her for even the smallest of favors. "I really shouldn't get myself involved in the affairs of married couples, Yaso-san. It's bad policy."

"Please, just this once, Tokio-chan. Just for the wedding. You can calm him, I know you can. If he continues like this, he will make an embarrassment. No one will notice if you follow him out into the gardens now. I would never lower myself or you to ask you of a favor like this again."

Tokio sighed. "As you wish, Yaso-san. If you believe it will make it better." With a soft squeeze of her hand from Yaso, Tokio bowed to her friend and walked nonchalantly out of the door that the wolf had left through.

He hadn't walked far, just to the other end of the gardens, out of plain view from the people making arrangements, partly shrouded by a small clump of domesticated trees. Carefully, she picked her way over to the other side, slipping in between the trees so she came into the little grove at his back. He knew of her presence long before it entered the grove, but he still turned carefully to avoid damage to his outfit.

"Fujita-san," she began, fingers knotting nervously together, before she noticed and forced them to smooth out.

"No, Tokio." His eyes pierced her without mercy.

"Hajime," it was more of a plead. "You have to go back in there. You're making Yaso-san so unhappy. If you cause a scene, it will bring dishonor and embarrassment on everyone, most of all the Kurasawas, and Yaso-san."

"This is like a horror-house, Tokio. All these people steeped in happiness, when in truth the three of us are just wearing grotesque, smiling masks."

Tokio's eyebrows furrowed. "Hajime, such poetry is quite unlike you. I must admit that your stoicism would be put to better use in this situation. Such emotion will do none of us any good, don't you agree?"

He snorted, turning partly away from her. "I've felt like a fool these past hours, and it's your fault, woman. You'll find no emotional forgiveness from me."

"A fool, and because of myself? How could you possibly mean?"

"It is a bit unmanning," he quite literally snarled, "to be at one's wedding, seated next to one's fiancée, and find oneself glancing every thirty seconds out of the window looking for another woman! _Worrying_, wasting one's time in foolish sentimentality, over another woman, while one's wife is sitting beside him!"

"Worrying? Hajime, you shouldn't have been worrying-. I was with Teru-hime-," Tokio stuttered, now feeling quite at a loss from the most sentimentality she had possibly ever seen from the man.

"Don't think of me as a fool, Tokio! I knew from the moment Kurasawa-san came to my door that you had fled. Just the fact that you are with the Kurasawas told me that you have no other connections that could support you in Tonami. Where did you think you were going to go? Was it your intention to be kidnapped, raped?"

"Saitou Hajime!"

"Did you think that you would be able to travel safely through these war-starved parts, Tokio? Did you gain some satisfaction in that, short of your princess happening upon you on her way to elsewhere, no doubt, no one else could help you? That you left on the one day that I could not help you, that you made me completely helpless, unless I wanted to expose our relationship and ruin you? I hope that it gave you some sense of freedom, Takagi-san, because you will not be getting any feelings of goodwill from me!"

Although his voice was now in a shout, Tokio was too shocked and overwhelmed to even check to make sure no one else had heard. Her breath came short in her chest, fluttering like the wings of the birds that were her nickname's inspiration. "Hajime…" She breathed at last, fighting a desperate battle not to cry.

"Did you think you were some sort of passing fancy to me, Tokio?" He growled menacingly, looking terrifying, even in the wedding outfit. One arm came up as he stepped forward, planting the hand on it to the tree trunk right above her shoulder. Her back was completely pressed up against the tree and trapped between it and him before she even realized what he was doing. "Yaso's more of a passing fancy than you are. I've fought these worthless feelings of attachment to you and lost. I'll admit, honorably, that I have lost these battles. No matter who I see, or what I try to distract myself with, I still-."

"Don't say it, Hajime. Please," she begged, reaching up one hand to place it gently on his chest, a tear leaking out of her eye, "I'm so sorry to have worried you, but please-."

"I still care for you," he continued, mercilessly, as mercilessly as he had killed all of his targets during the bakumatsu.

She sagged against him, thoughts of his appearance against him. "I'm so sorry, Hajime. I will never run away again, I promise you. Please, please go back inside. Please marry Yaso-san, please don't cause her any more grief. I won't cause any more trouble for you, or make you worry again, I promise. Just let me forget that you ever loved me."

He wrapped her thin, shaking shoulders and body in his arms, holding her close for a long moment, before releasing her again. "You will not forget, Tokio."

Instead of crying again, she just smiled a little, watery smile. "I believe that my tears are on your clothing, Hajime. What a way to begin a marriage."

"It's oddly fitting, really." He turned and left her alone in the trees. A few minutes later, she followed him back inside.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: I'm so sorry that's it has taken a while for me to update. I've been busy with school, and with personal-drama problems, and family emergencies. So, please forgive me, and here's the next chapter! Please let me know what you think of the story thus far. I'm not entirely sure I'm content with a couple of parts of this chapter, but I'm not sure I'll ever get around to revising it. 

Review, please! –Murasaki

Fujita Goro and Shinoda Yaso were married August 25, 1871. Fujita Yaso continued with her job as a cook to the Kurasawa residence, while Fujita Goro took various jobs to support them. In the days that spiraled into autumn, Takagi Tokio could be seen, as usual, running errands, looking after her adopted-mother and mistress, and taking care of the children and household chores. If perhaps she was a little quieter, if the colors around her face were a little paler, or she had lost a little more weight, it was lost on the rest of the household.

As late fall began to pass into winter, Tokio taught the girls that were her charges how to sew and pad the linings of fall jackets for the onset of snow. The last food was collected and preserved, everything was rationed out, repairs were made to the house, and the entire Kurasawa household hunkered down under a fresh blanket of snow, to outlast the winter.

On one day early the next year, when the piles of snow in the courtyard were freshly renewed from a snowfall the previous night, Tokio knocked carefully on the door to the Fujita quarters. "Pardon my rudeness," she called out, much in her customary manner.

The winter had not been very kind to anyone, as a fact, but there were new lines on Tokio's face that had not been there, and she poked, dismayed, at the bones that seemed to jut out all too sharply from her ribcage when she undressed every night. The skin around her face seemed a little bit slack and tired. Although mostly the hands that currently held a tray with some hot soup, rice and dried fish, were strong, occasionally they shook with an unsuppressed tremor.

The shoji shot open suddenly, and would've startled a more flighty and more vibrant creature. The eyes that glared down at her were their usual amber hue. She half-bowed politely, careful not to spill any food. "Fujita-san, good afternoon. I've brought Yaso-san her food, if you don't mind. Kurasawa-san says that if she is too unwell to cook for supper, that I may replace her for the evening."

The wolf-man half-shrugged his shoulders. "Leave the food for her, Takagi-san, and then do me the honor of joining me on the engawa."

"As you wish, Fujita-san." She stepped gracefully past him, to the futon on the floor in the back of the room. Fujita Goro watched her kneel beside his wife, feeling her forehead and offering to help her eat. Yaso angrily pushed her away at the last suggestion, but hauled herself up to lean against the wall to feed herself. Using her choice words both to thank Tokio and push her away, she began to eat, first slowly, then ravenously, then slowly again. Tokio, at Yaso's insistence, left her alone to do so.

"Perhaps it's the cold, getting to her, Fujita-san?" Tokio asked gently as she joined him on the other side of the room again. Following him out onto the engawa again, he shut the door behind them. "She'll be alright come spring, I'm sure."

"We need a place of privacy to speak, Takagi-san," he said gravely.

"The kitchens?" She suggested, "I'm working there alone while Yaso-san is ill- no one ought to bother us there, but it wouldn't be unseemly for us to meet there."

A few minutes later, she flitted about the kitchen while Fujita sat at the small table, eating a thin-broth soup and sipping some tea. Both Tokio and Yaso, he reflected, had the ability to pull food out of empty cupboards, and extra rations out of dust. Catching a glimpse of Tokio's ankle and graceful arm as she spun to catch the boiling teapot, he frowned. Tokio was almost skinnier than Yaso was, and Yaso was-.

"Is there anything else I can get for you, Fujita-san?"

"Please, sit, Takagi-san."

"Are you certain?"

"Tokio!"

She froze, shoulders hunched up as she tried to sense the presences of anyone nearby who might've heard. It had been months since she had heard her given name uttered by those lips, in their usual low growl. It both thrilled her, and threatened the buried emotions once again.

"You promised you wouldn't do that," she reminded him, almost pleading. "You promised."

"How else am I going to get you to listen to me, woman?" He demanded. "Sit down."

Tokio hesitated, then knelt at the table across from him.

"Pour yourself some tea." His golden eyes watched her as she produced another cup, seemingly from nowhere, and began to fill it slowly. "Now, drink." Self-consciously, knowing he was looking on, she sipped the green tea. Immediately, she felt strength returning to her face.

Putting the cup down, she saw that he offered her his half-full bowl of miso. "You will have some of this, as well."

"I only made enough for you and Yaso-san-," she began, only to be cut off as he thrust the bowl at her again.

"Don't argue with me, woman. You would think you'd have learned that it was futile by now."

Tokio lowered her eyes. "I couldn't take your food, Fujita-san. It would be odd to share it from the same bowl, we don't have the necessary connections."

"Like hell we don't, Tokio," he growled under his breath, eyes flashing dangerously. "You will eat some of this soup. I refuse to speak to a woman who is making herself over into a corpse."

Still she hesitated.

"If you don't take it in three seconds, I will feed you myself, and that will be _most_ unseemly."

Her long, thin fingers grasped the bowl, and she drank, first sipping, then gulping, until all too soon, it was gone.

"You will take better care of yourself in the future, is that understood, Tokio? Is that understood between us?" She resisted only a moment under his glare, then nodded vigorously.

"Yes," a pause, "Yes, Hajime."

He leaned back, satisfied in more than one way, not just at her answer but at the use of his name. "I don't have the time and energy to be looking after two women from now on, and Yaso will only be needing more care."

She looked at him, mystified. "I assumed that Yaso-san only had a bad cold. Are you implying that she will _not_ recover when spring arrives?"

"This is what I needed to discuss with you. Yaso does not want me to tell you this, Tokio, but I feel you should know. Yaso has been sick with an illness for a very long time. She has known for quite a while that it would kill her someday."

"An illness?" Tokio asked blankly, but he only shook his head, to imply that he knew no more than that. "I see… So she has known this for all the time that I have known her?"

Saitou nodded. "Yes, she has. It will kill her in a few years, at most. It was a major component of our marriage- she needed someone to take care of her while she lived out her last years, so she wouldn't have to support herself."

Tokio shook her head, mulling over the memories and thoughts that spun through her. "I can't believe it. Why would she not tell me?"

"She didn't want you to worry," he replied, feeling awkward and odd about the entire conversation. At least Tokio was taking it well. "She's stubborn as hell, that way."

She wouldn't meet his eyes, and the room lapsed into silence again. She watched the floor intently, and he watched her, face unreadable as always. "Every time I feel as if things cannot get any worse for me," she murmured, quiet as a breath, "Something happens to remind me how blessed I really am."

"Tokio-."

"Kurasawa-san inquired the other day as to if I would formally become their daughter," she murmured again, still in the same quiet tone. "She only wished to give me a secure place- a home. Once more, give me a family, connections. An opportunity to marry- I have not had that since I became an assistant to Teru-hime. She mentioned you, and Yaso-san. How I could have security, such as the security that you have brought for Yaso-san."

He could see the tear tracing itself down her face, gracing a darkly shining path down over her cheek and by her nose. Saitou said nothing, sensing she had more to say, as desperately as he wanted to coax out the pain barbed into her soul, or at least numb it. It was not his place anymore, and any temporary relief from her pain would just make it all the sharper later. Perhaps, he reflected, it would be best if she did get married, settled down somewhere. She would move away from the Kurasawas, returning only occasionally. He and Yaso would settle into their life patterns until her death, without him constantly inhaling, to catch the last remnants of sweet scent that had followed a certain other woman's feet past their door on the engawa. Perhaps it would be best to part paths forever, to regain his cynical sense of self, and his old worldview, that had fled with the settling of this little bird in his hand.

"But-," her voice startled him out of his reverie, a whisper slightly thicker with tears, "I could only think of you. I could only –taste- you, on my lips. I am afraid now, that I cannot live without dishonor. Truly, I must love pain, to think of throwing all this away, for something that was never any more than a whisper in the night."

"Tokio-," he tried to interject again.

"I could not answer her, Hajime," the whisper was no longer tearful, but distressed. "I could not accept for myself a life that did not have you in it. I told her that I needed more time, to contemplate this important decision. Graciously, she accepted that reply, but I know she wonders why I do not accept her."

"Would you silence yourself for just a mom-," he began, allowing a little anger to creep into his voice.

"I thought to myself," she continued, to all appearances ignoring him, "that, 'I am too tired for this'. I thought about ending my life, but that would shame everyone, and there would be no good explanation to offer to them as to why. I have nowhere else to go. But now that I hear of Yaso-san's condition, I understand better the perspective I ought to have. I may be tired, but I am alive, and I am healthy. It is foolish for me not to accept the Kurasawas' request. I may not find happiness, but I will not be a burden any longer."

"Tokio, be silent," he tried again, and she complied, although he could not tell if it was merely because she was finished speaking. He wanted to reach out and touch her face. "Look at me."

Hesitantly, her chin rose, eyes still cast downward, as if to put off the meeting of eyes for as long as possible. At long last, her expressive eyes flicked up, with the intention of meeting his eyes, only to dart away again so as to keep the emotion low.

Instead, their gazes caught, and held, as he'd expected them to do. "I cannot expect you to wait indefinitely for me," he began, voice low and terse. "I cannot expect you to dangle forever at the end of a string of possibilities, but-." She blinked once, slowly, but he didn't allow their gazes to break. She heard him trail off, to try to master the overflow emotion that was so unusual to him.

Tokio felt another tear trace slowly down her face, but a tear different from the others she had wept.

"But if you would agree to wait for me," she felt another tear, felt her spine shake, allowed her head to drop, allowed her hair to fall in front of her face. A sign of mourning, of hopelessness, of sadness. Of the deepest, most painful, heartfelt joy.

"No matter how many years that it takes, Tokio," she felt the feeling of living and dying, all at the same time. She felt the fear of the future and the surety that came from hearing his voice.

"I give you my word, I will not forsake you."

With those last words, he stood, bent to kiss her forehead, and walked out, leaving behind the intensity and illegitimacy of the moment. Inside, Tokio let her face fall into her hands, and wept freely, glad there was no longer a witness to her tears.

Winter passed into spring, snow melted, flowers bloomed, Tokio's face filled out a little once more, and Yaso's health improved. Once again, Tokio took the children out beyond the gates to the house, out into the grassy fields and forests. The frost that had settled into her heart after the marriage and the onset of winter melted some. The children helped her plant vegetables from the seeds they'd collected last year. Yaso once again went to work in the kitchen, and Saitou went to work repairing roads for money, gone sometimes days at a time with his work team. Things settled back into something of a normal routine.

Then, one day, as Saitou swing a pick high above his head, breaking apart a rock that had been one of many to fall in spring mudslides, a carriage rolled past them, regardless of the bad road conditions. Unlike the other carts that had passed by this day, it rolled to a stop behind him. Unable to think of a reason why it would've stopped for him, he continued to work. The other men in his team looked up, confused, including their boss. Saitou smirked. These men had attention spans of monkeys.

The door opened to the carriage, and a rather short man stepped out. "My Princess, Teru-hime, requires the man Fujita Goro to accompany her to her destination. His supervisor shall be duly reimbursed."

Saitou lowered his pick, and turned around. Tokio's lady wanted to see him. If he had to cast a bet, he would bet that this wasn't going to end well. Nonchalantly, as the boss hurried up greedily to take the Princess's money, he picked up his plain white western-style shirt, and put it on, not bothering to wipe the grime off of his face. While he had a healthy respect for authority, he wasn't about to bow and scrape to a woman who had long held herself above men in general.

"Oh, do hurry up and climb in, Fujita-san," a tart voice clipped out from inside. "If we hurry, we might leave Tatsuro behind." As he climbed inside, the manservant climbed up into the seat behind the horses in the nick of time.

Inside, as the carriage rolled off on its way again, Saitou's eyes took quite some adjusting to the dark. Just as he suspected she would, she used this to her advantage almost immediately. "My apologies for delaying this meeting for so long, Fujita-san, I don't know where my manners have gone," she commented dryly. "I understand that my ex-lady-in-waiting has taken an interest in you. Since it seems to be much more that a passing affection, I decided we should have a little discussion about the future."

"This conversation," he replied just as dryly, "can have little to do with the life of this married man. I would say my lady has the wrong person." His voice was as mocking on her title as hers was every time she put an honorific at the end of his name.

"Married, my dear Captain, but not for the rest of your life. The Kurasawas' physician also reports to me. Your wife, as you well know, will not last more than a few of years at best."

He had been mildly alarmed by her use of his old rank, but said nothing, knowing she, of all people, would probably know. "We have every hope that our future together will be long. It may not be impossible for her to survive her disease."

"In that case, then," she remarked, "we should perhaps consider the idea of dissolving your marriage to each other."

"And what makes you think that I desire to leave it?"

"What makes you think you may turn away the hand that is trying to help you?"

Both stared at each other, trying to fit as much violence as possible into the gaze they shot at the other.

"If Tokio-chan were here," she conceded at last, "She would admonish me for my behavior, and instruct me to try again. She was always far more levelheaded than I."

"Indeed," he replied, feeling distinctly more uncomfortable with her concession than with the argument. Saitou Hajime, Fujita Goro, whatever he called himself, the man behind the names had always been a bit awakward with dealing with women.

"I am called Matsudaira Teru," she said formally, "You may have heard of me," the last bit was dry.

"I am honored, Teru-hime," he replied, and she nodded, "I am referred to as Fujita Goro."

"Indeed, Fujita-san, but you are also known to be many other things." She caught his eyes with hers, but the tension in the room had cooled considerably. "Saitou Hajime of the Shinsengumi, for instance. I know a fair amount about you."

"I do not doubt."

"You married Shinoda Yaso a few months ago, Fujita-san. You and my lady-in-waiting, Tokio-chan, were secret lovers."

"If one is to put it in such a melodramatic way, yes," he replied coolly.

"To all appearances, once you were wed, the affair stopped."

He stared silently back at her, admitting nothing one way or the other.

"I understand that was a personal comment, Fujita-san. You need not reply. You did not marry Shinoda-san from anything more than affection, it was clear, but out of an obligation. She needed the security that a husband would bring, and there was no way that you could not benefit from marrying a stable member of a Tonami household, to give you a more permanent residence. Shinoda-san needed someone to care for her while she lived out her final years, and the Uenos and the Kurasawas were all too happy to give you that position, as a reward of your protectiveness of Tokio-chan, who is very dear to Kurasawa Heijiemon and Keiko."

"Your information is correct, my lady. That is the current situation of my wedded life."

She smirked, her aloofness returning at his lack of humility in her presence. She flicked open her fan. "Well, Fujita-san, if I understand everything correctly, then perhaps you may help me. I've been facing a bit of a conundrum these past few months. You see, my Tokio-chan has been quite unhappy since her exile and release from my service, and after so many years of her friendship and service, I desire to help such a wonderful woman in any way I can. When I learned that she had fallen in love with a poor exile named Fujita Goro, however, I despaired of ever pairing her with a satisfactory match that would guarantee her happiness in life. Even with her family gone, a lady of her statue, from the Takagi family, could not marry a poor farmer!"

He was silent, and allowed her to continue. Not, he reflected, that she would stop, anyway.

"But you are a man of secrets, Fujita-san, and one particular secret would make it possible for me to excuse a marriage, in fact, arrange a marriage, between you two."

Her face was half-shrouded in darkness, and the fan inched a little farther up her face, so that only her eyes and delicate hairline showed. "There are some that still admire the courage and attention to ideals that certain individuals showed during the Bakumatsu. Some of those admirers may be in high places. In such tumultuous times, why not take advantage of the confusion to reward certain individuals for their devotion, and for the simple act of falling in love? Others might call me foolish for doing so, but if it can be done, why not? Such unhappiness in this time can still indeed breed happiness for many." She paused visibly, "If not for all of us, then at least for some."

Saitou didn't take the bait, although it was purposely offered. He cared nothing for this woman's private life, her secret desires. That was her world, and Tokio's, and he didn't care to interfere. He had seen the dark cast to Tokio's face when she talked of things she'd lost, and love she was burdened to carry, and he saw it again, reflected on the princess's face. Everyone had their dark woes.

What mattered here, he reflected, was that this high-and-mighty woman, for all her shortcomings, was offering a way to bring himself and the little bird together. "And what would happen to Yaso?" He asked, determined not to get his hopes up- or at least show that he had his hopes up to this woman. "None of us are children anymore, my lady, and marriage is not something we can make and dissolve on a whim. We must be responsible for our actions."

"Saitou-san," she chided softly, "I can do many a thing under the approval of those higher-up, and no one will question my motives. Wouldn't it makes just as much logical sense that Yaso-san, who is dying, to be adopted by the Kurasawas, and Tokio-chan, who is at a complete loss in life but is still young and healthy, to be married to man who can offer stability?"

"I cannot see the Kurasawas as being unapposed to this. They were of a very singleminded desire to adopt Takagi-chan for their own daughter. They are quite taken with her."

"Not as much as you are, Saitou Hajime-san," she retorted, voice slyly teasing. Almost as soon as she'd finished that, though, her features sobered, and she leaned forward, snapping her fan closed with a _clack_ and pointing it at him. He fought the urge to lean back away from her a little more, and fixed a stoic expression on his face. "I don't know what Toki-chan sees in you, really, a warrior wolf who still half-lives in the era now behind us. You're stern, and humorless, and grumpy to boot," her mouth pinched into something very small.

Saitou said nothing, a bit worried by the woman's bipolar behavior.

"But," Teru leaned back, heaving a very theatrical sigh, "She does seem to see something in you. I always wondered if Toki-chan was a bit on the morbid side. And if pairing her with you would make her happy, I would use my influence to make it so."

"As you wish, my lady," he said quietly, bowing from the waist slightly in his cramped seated position. Neither of them missed the intensity of the emotion in his voice, and Teru's features turned even more solemn.

"I make no promises to you, Saitou-san. Recently, I have been over-exerting my own influence to be allowed to return to Tokyo, and meet up again with my lord. But when I return to the city, I will work with whatever influence I have left to honorably break the marriage, and allow Tokio-chan to be married to you. It may not work. It may take quite some time. But if you give me your consent, I will work to make things right." She sighed, and stared into the distance for a moment, out the window. "If an order comes from high enough ranks, the marriage can be broken quietly, and a mandate of power would keep trouble low. We have Tokio-chan's reputation as Takagi to consider, as well. Something must remain to honor her ties to her family." Her eyes pierced him like a hawk. "Would this suit you, Saitou Hajime? For I may only proceed if you are willing."

Although he didn't need even to debate with himself over it, he didn't give her an answer right away. There was no way in the seven hells that he would come across as eager to this woman. While he could deny this assistance, and wait for Yaso's life to end before they would go their own separate ways, he knew that it was all too possible that Tokio would not be allowed to wait that long, or could not afford to do so. If Yaso recovered to live a long life, then Tokio would be as good as forsaken.

"Aa, I am willing."

His reply punctured the silence of the carriage, and she leaned forward almost immediately to stare directly into his eyes. "You really do love her, don't you, Saitou-san," she remarked. As usual, he said nothing, refusing to answer a comment like that.

Silence stretched on, and Teru leaned back once more. "We will return you to the Kurasawa residence, where I shall speak to Tokio-chan. If you're a smart man, Saitou-san," the mocking look in her eyes made it clear that that point was under contention in her book, "you won't mention more than absolutely necessary to her. I cannot guarantee that this will be a success, by any means, and there's no point in once again getting her hopes up, only to dash them again."

"I'm not a fool, my lady," he replied coldly, glad he could see the enclosing walls around the Kurasawa residence in the near distance.

"Men are fools," she replied, just as coldly.


	10. Chapter 10

Things should start moving at a faster pace now, plot-wise, after this chapter. Thank you to all who have read and reviewed this story! My apologies also for the delay, I've been taking care of my dad, who was recently in a serious car accident, and I had to return home. At any rate, please let me know what you think, it makes me happy to hear your opinions! Chapter 10 up for you now, please enjoy! -Murasaki

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The moment that the carriage rolled to a stop outside the gate, Saitou pushed upon the door to the carriage and hopped out, smacking Tatsuro very neatly in the head with the carriage door. Holding the door open for the princess as the man muttered something about fireflies and went to sit down, his eyes found, right before them, the very object of their discussions. Tokio, having shut the gate almost all the way behind her, had frozen, eyes wide at the carriage.

"Sada-chan!" Teru-hime called gaily as she came out of the carriage, lifting up the hems of her kimono so they wouldn't drag in the spring mud. Tokio crossed the muddy depression in front of the gate, so that Teru wouldn't get her own geta wet and dirty.

"Teru-hime," she said much more reservedly, "What a pleasant surprise." She accepted the taller woman's embrace, and her eyes went to Saitou, as if to pretend that she had only seen him for the first time. "And you returned Fujita-san to us, as well, how kind of you. I-," she fumbled slightly, but then continued in her melodic voice, that sounded almost like a song from the lips of someone half-dreaming, "I heard that Yaso-san was very worried when we received word that he had been separated from the work crew. I believe that she thought that he was perhaps injured in some way."

"I was picked up by your lady, here," he said uncomfortably, earning a small, mostly hidden smile from Tokio and a sniff of disdain from Teru.

"Perhaps you ought to go and see your wife," Teru-hime pointed out, eyes flashing in a way that brooked no argument. "Assure her of your well-being. Toki-chan, I was wondering if perhaps I might have a word with you?"

"Certainly, Teru-hime. I can spare a few moments, before I go down the road to pick up some herbs for Kurasawa-san." Saitou knew he was dismissed, and continued on inside.

Yaso was in the kitchen, as she always was. She barely turned to acknowledge him when he walked in, although he cleared his throat in his customary way around her. "Ah, husband," she said in her usual tart voice over her shoulder, "I see you've made it home. Unharmed, may I hope?"

This woman, he reflected, trying not to make himself more melancholy than absolutely necessary, did not understand him at all.

"I had to attend to some business, wife," he replied tonelessly, "Business that is not yours."

The tension thickened in the room, but she said nothing. Her back was to him, and he couldn't see the pain that spasmed across her face, quick as an eyeblink. "Well," she said at last, "I'm glad to hear my esteemed husband is not in any trouble. Now, his humble wife has work to do." The tightness in the the humble way that she spoke belied that she really felt no humility at all.

"And what if," he said slowly, "I decided not to leave your presence?" His voice was cool, but she could tell that, for some unknown reason, he wasn't going to back down from this fight.

Instead of firing up, her words pitted against his, the tired Yaso put down the knife she had been cutting with, turned on her heel, and walked out of the room. Saitou did not stop her as she walked right past him.

Supper that evening was a disastrous affair- Yaso had stormed out and had refused even to come back to finish her duties as cook. Therefore, a mere hour before the dinner hour, no one had any prepared food, and Yaso was nowhere to be found. The moment that Tokio returned from her long talk with Teru-hime and her trip down to the clinic to pick up Kurasawa-san's herbs, Kurasawa-san fell upon her like a single whirlwind comprised of many panicking chickens.

"Tokio-chan! Tokio-chan! Whatever shall we do?! Yaso-san is nowhere to be found, I'm worried that she may have collapsed somewhere! We must look for her! But no one is yet fed, and everyone is getting hungry! Did she run an errand somewhere, and fail to return? Who would have allowed her to leave in her frail health?"

Tokio said nothing at first, but looked around piercingly at the household, standing with her packages in her arms in the courtyard. Unless she was very much mistaken, she smelled a wolf in all of this-. And, sure enough, she received the now-familier shock as their eyes met, him skulking near the shoji of the room that he shared with Yaso. Her eyes narrowed very slightly at his vaguely insolent look, but she turned back to Kurasawa Keiko.

"Well, let us get the situation here at home under control, Kurasawa-san, first. If you would be so kind as to ask some of the young men- Kenji-kun, perhaps, and Sota-kun, to run to the Ueno residence and down into the village, respectively, and ask if anyone has seen Fujita-chan, then we may turn to salvaging supper. If they hurry, they may go before it gets dark."

"But, Tokio-chan, aren't you worried for Yaso-chan?" Kurasawa Keiko, plagued with the best intentions, wrung her hands and peered at her servant anxiously.

"Of course, Kurasawa-san," she murmured, truly regaining her external calm once more, "But you and I shall accomplish nothing for her if we cannot get our emotions under control." With the intimation that Tokio had referred to them as some kind of team on equal footing, Kurasawa-san beamed.

"Yes, yes, of course, Tokio-chan! I'll go ask some of the boys to go, right away!" At that, she was off, and Tokio set her sights on the kitchen. Unfortunately, the wolf had not moved from his shadowy hiding place, and he lay between her and the kitchen. Determined to ignore him, she stopped at the well by the gate, and drew a bucket of water, and then walked the long way around the engawa. Perhaps, she thought, although she didn't actually believe it, he would realize that she didn't want to speak with him.

Takagi Tokio was tired, in every way one could possibly name. She certainly did not want to tangle with wily wolves tonight. Unfortunately, it seemed as if the wily wolf didn't want to cooperate with her wishes. As she attempted to put the bucket of water down to open the engawa, she found it taken gently out of her hands, by the animal-like man who had crept up silently to her side.

Quietly, she looked from side to side, to confirm that the engawa was mostly empty- with the coming of spring, many people had gone to work for whomever they had connections with, most heading back out to the fields once again- before nodding and inviting him in wordlessly, extending her hand to the open doorway.

"Tokio," he began, sliding the shoji shut behind them.

"You shall address me," she replied, adding some loftiness into her voice, "as Takagi, if you please, as befits my rank and our relationship, thank you, Fujita-san."

There was silence for a moment- obviously, he was unnerved at her pulling rank suddenly.

"And if I don't _please_?" He asked caustically, hackles up, "What would you do, Tokio? Bat your eyelashes at me? A good, proper gentlelady, are you?"

"Where is your wife, Fujita-san?" She asked emotionlessly. "A good husband ought to be taking care of his family, not bothering single women."

"Hell if I know, woman! She just walked out earlier this afternoon!"

Tokio was busy shaping food from the empty air in the cupboards, or that's how it seemed to him, and did not face him to reply. "You're the head of your family unit, if you will pardon my forwardness, Fujita-san. All this one knows is that the woman that is in your charge failed to complete her duties today that keep this household running. Fujita-chan is responsible for people greater than herself here, and we must all pull together to survive. Regardless of if she left for her own reasons, or if you chased her off, in one way or another, someone in your charge has failed to complete her duties here."

There was a stony, icy, biting silence that fell between the two of them.

"Now, if you will excuse me, sir, this unworthy one must take steps to clean up the problems that have resulted from your lack of foresight, thank you. And if this one could give you advice, she would tell you to go find your wife, and attend to her, Fujita-san."

Seemingly, he reflected angrily, this day was trying its level best to seal victories away from him. Stepping forward rapidly, giving her only enough time to freeze over her cooking, but not enough time to dodge, he came up immediately behind her, pressing himself gently against her, hand reaching out to parallel her own arm, to gently force her to put the knife she had been chopping with down. Wordlessly, she obeyed, and he felt one unsuppressed tremor. Then, she tried to breathe in such a way as to keep as still as possible.

It seemed impossible for her to be so intimately close to him and still speak in such formal terms, and she sighed. "Hajime, I am tired. Please leave me be. There is so much that needs be attended to- the residents will soon be calling for their supper, and I am one woman attempting to do three women's work. It would ease my mind greatly if you could make sure that Yaso-chan is alright."

"In a moment, a moment," he whispered down into her delicate ear. "Yaso can be an amazingly stubborn woman, but she is not a fool. She has spent long enough wrestling her illness that she knows when it will win, and when to stop. Given a little time, I will most certainly track her down. You, on the other hand, my little Lady Bird," he made the title gently mocking, "Need a little bit of attention."

"Hajime," she replied, attempting to make a sharp retort that was largely ruined by a blush staining her cheeks.

"Hush," he ordered, and leaned over her shoulder at a sharper angle to nibble on her earlobe. Tokio let out the smallest and most delicate of moans. Quiet as it was, it still made the wolf's blood race.

Her own blood rushing faster in her own ears than was proper, Tokio turned in his grip, and against her better judgement, reached up to fuse her lips with his, marveling as his hands set her own body afire, turning nerves into plunging cycles of hot and cold. Hungry, she pressed herself even closer to him, delighting in tasting what she had not partaken in since the last summer.

Suddenly, he ripped himself from her, and was gone before she could even draw in a surprised gasp. The kitchen was empty of him as if he'd never been there, and if for the fact that her kimono was rumpled and her breath was short, she would have believed that it had only been a very potent daydream. In his wake, he had left the shoji cracked, and Tokio jumped as she heard the reason for his flight- the footsteps of Kurasawa Keiko were rapidly approaching down the engawa. Fighting down panic, she straightened her kimono and hair as quickly as she could, and was calmly cutting up vegetables to put into the soup broth as her mistress came stepping cheerfully in through the door.

"Tokio-chan!" She called, much relieved that her soon-to-be adopted daughter had already begun making progress putting things to rights, "I'm glad to see that things are underway here. It seems that the boys found Yaso-san at the Ueno residence. It seems she left to run an errand, but became tired on the way back, and so stopped at her old home. I'm sure that Fujita-san will want to go down and retrieve her. Perhaps I could get him to escort you down the road, and you could take a token of my thanks to the Uenos? Once you are done with supper, of course. I wish to send you because Yumi-san knows your face, and your connection to us."

A pause. Tokio knew that the Kurasawas were attempting to show her off to as many of their friends as they could, so that when they adopted her, her transition from servant to daughter would be a smoother one. "Perhaps, Kurasawa-san, if you were to summon Aomura-san here, she could finish this task, before returning to her mending, and I could accompany Fujita-san before it gets too late."

Kurasawa Keiko beamed warmly at the younger woman. "That was an idea on my own mind as well, Tokio-chan. I'm glad you approve! I shall go find her directly!"

Tokio paused for a minute as her mistress headed for the doorway. "Kurasawa-san? Pardon my interruption…"

Keiko stopped in the door, secretly delighted by Tokio's slightest breach in good manners- it meant that, just maybe, they were breaking through the girl's extreme sense of politeness and duty, and she was seeing them more as family than as masters. "It's no worry, Tokio-chan? What is on your mind?"

She looked on in amusement as the girl passed a very small smile over her face. "Your happiness uplifts my own spirits, Kurasawa-san. May I be so bold as to ask what makes you so happy so suddenly?"

Kurasawa Keiko chuckled a little. "Oh, Tokio-chan, you'll be excited to hear this news! Whenever you are ready to let your past lie in rest- and don't feel as if we are rushing you, the first thing we want is for you to be content- we have found a good man from a decent Tonami family for you to marry. When you decide to become our daughter, you shall be introduced directly."

Keiko was rewarded by a sweet smile blooming across Tokio's face. "Thank you, Kurasawa-san, for looking out so thoroughly for my welfare. I hope that my own personal sorrows will not keep you waiting long."

The motherly figure somiled. "We cannot move these things on our own, Tokio-chan, but I'm sure that sunlight shall break through your sorrows soon. How could it not, with such a secure and bright future before you now?"

"Thank you, Kurasawa-san."

"Well, I'm off, but I'll return shortly."

"Of course."

As the doorway was vacated once again, Tokio fought down the urge to be sick. Methodically, she continued to prepare the supper until the ever-demure Yuuna appeared in the door.

"Takagi-san," she said in her quiet, musical voice, "Fujita-san is waiting for you by the gate." Tokio tried not to look up too fast, and set the ladle in her hand down carefully, brushing herself off.

"My thanks, Aomura-san. I will be off."

"Return safely and soon, Takagi-san."

As Tokio left, she couldn't help but wonder how much Aomura-san knew or guessed about her feelings for Saitou. She decided that it wasn't important enough to concern herself with now.

"Stay close, Tokio," he murmured, and Tokio looked up at the man she was following, realizing, that, in her thoughts, she had been lagging behind him. "There are too many wolves out in the forests, these days."

"And you, Hajime?" She asked, voice vaguely mocking as she hurried up to where he paused to wait for her. "I would believe that you are the most dangerous wolf in these parts. Why should an innocent woman be any less afraid of you than any of the others?"

Darkness had mostly fallen, and his golden eyes turned away from her as they resumed walking again, Tokio hurrying to keep up with the wolf's rapid pace. "Because this particular wolf would protect this particular innocent woman down to the last, and has, as always, her best intentions in mind."

Tokio let out a very unladylike snort, but moved a little closer to him. "This woman sincerely doubts that this wolf has her best intentions involved, Hajime."

"And why is that, little bird?"

She blushed a little at the nickname, but came back with a quick reply. "Because this wolf is walking too fast for the 'little bird' to keep up with him. It would be such a shame if she twisted an ankle trying to keep up with her protector's pace."

His arm flew out so fast that she crashed into it, and only her old training as a warrior allowed her to balance herself so quickly again. As she saw his other hand go for his sword, she stepped back wordlessly and also soundlessly. As soon as his behavior drew attention to it, she knew that there was someone coming through the woods.

Not over the road, as one would customarily do, she decided, so it was, indeed, most likely an attacker. The woods was dark and, although Tokio didn't normally subscribe to this method of thought about the natural world, a little bit frightening. Perhaps, she thought, she was out of practice in sensing others' presences, but there seemed to only be one person, moving slowly through the woods. Much more slowly than a warrior or a bandit most likely wood.

Her eyebrows furrowed. The ki was familier, but there was something a little strange with it, a little off. Like there was something twisted, or it was sick.

"Hajime," she whispered, coming up so they were waiting back-to-back, "That's Yaso, isn't it."

She could feel the sharp nod that affirmed her hypothesis.

"Then what's wrong with her, Hajime? There's something wrong with her spirit…"

Another sharp nod, and then a quiet, directed hiss, "It's the sickness, Tokio. Sometimes it makes her… strange."

To her attuned ears, she heard the very distant sounds of Yaso coming through the brush, feet snapping twigs. It sounded as if she was stumbling, unable to walk straight.

"Tokio," he muttered, very lowly. "Take off your geta, take this from my hand, and run down to the Uenos. Stay there until I fetch you, do not return before then. Now."

"Haji-."

"Tokio!" He barked, as a whisper. The crunching was getting louder. Yaso stumbled into a tree and cursed. Swallowing nervously, she reached over to the palm of his hand, and took the small dagger there as she slipped off her sandals. As silent as she possibly could, she ran down the road, willing her feet to carry her as silently as possible.

Yaso's breathing was getting closer to her, and Tokio fought down an unreasonable feeling of panic. Yaso was her friend, after all, and even if she was sick… But there was something going on here, something that Tokio didn't understand at all. Hajime had not told her all the details. How exactly was Yaso sick-?

Tokio felt suddenly sick, and realized that it was because such an ill presence was so close to her. Yaso's breathing filled her ears, and suddenly the other woman was in front of her, and in her hand was something that glimmered dully in the low light. Tokio smelled the overpowering smell of alcohol. The married woman's hair had fallen free about her, she was scratched and dirty from stumbling through the forest. At seeing Tokio's face, she grinned, but there was nothing friendly in the smile, in fact, it was something quite hostile… almost terrifying…

"Yaso-san?" She whispered. The thing in Yaso's hand flashed as her arm moved, and Tokio realized it was a knife, possibly one of the Uenos' kitchen knives. Yaso just missed as she slashed at Tokio, and the smaller woman jumped back as quickly as she could evading the blow, gripping Saitou's dagger in her own hand. This wasn't the Yaso she knew.

"Wife!" A sharp shout came from behind her, and Tokio felt herself grabbed by the collar of her kimono and thrown roughly backward. Unable to catch herself in time, she fell to the ground and skidded along before sliding to a stop. Quickly, not wanting to be in a vulnerable position in case of a fight, she scrambled to her feet, to see the knife Yaso had been wielding lying, reflecting the new moonlight, on the ground. Fujita had moved to block her view of his wife.

"Takagi-san," he said firmly. "Please take this knife my wife borrowed from the Uenos, and return it to them. An escort will come to bring you back in time."

"Hai, Fujita-san," she replied, finding her geta on the ground, and putting them back on. In the deepening darkness, she had no idea of the condition that she was in, but she was only worried with getting as far away as she possibly could at that moment. Picking up the knife as she hurried by, she didn't dare chance a look at either woman or man.

As she left them behind, she heard Yaso whisper her husband's name, and begin to cry.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: It's been a long time, everyone! I'm sorry for such a long delay, and to top it off, this chapter is fairly short. It's sort of a filler, to wrap up this section of the story (the next chapter, which I promise will come more quickly, will be jumping ahead in time a little ways). Luckily, the story should really be picking up from here on out. A couple notes: One, thank you to everyone who has reviewed this! I'm heartened by the feedback, and it has compelled me not to give up on this story. Two, aNON-san has a very good point here, "however, i don't quite understand why saitou didn't just leave yaso, given that tokio was even better regarded by Lord and Lady K". The reason for this was that Tokio was, before the events that landed her at the Kurasawa residence, from a high-born family, with much prestige, especially after she served Matsudaira-hime. The Kurasawas knew this, and would hardly entertain the thought of a union between 'Lady Takagi' and 'Fujita Goro', a last remnant of the Takagi family and a poor swordsman (as this was the masquerade he was playing at the Kurasawas for his own safety- there might have been different repercussions for him had the people at the temple where he was being held previously known that he was a Shinsengumi Captain. Thus the frequent name-changes to stay ahead of his enemies and less-than-friends. Because he had assumed such a lesser station, the Kurasawas probably only saw him as a helpful servant to them and to their soon-to-be adopted daughter, and thus rewarded him with another servant (Yaso) for a wife, also giving them both the stability of a family structure in such unstable times. Tokio was too far above Fujita Goro's station, and, in normal times, also above Saitou Hajime's station, to consider a marriage, but Teru-hime's dialogue previously underscores how exactly she might be able to arrange a marriage to Tokio with someone of an unequal station but a recognized status (Shinsengumi captain instead of farmer boy or some such) in these tumultuous and unstable times.

Thanks for bearing with me! The next chapter should be much longer, and will come sooner. Sorry for the long notes as well. Murasaki.

Tokio barely remembered the rest of her flight to the Ueno residence. She was bruised and dirty, and her kimono was ripped. At her knock at the gate, a man about her age answered the door, holding a lantern, the only thing illuminating against the night. "Good evening, Ojou-san. This one regrets to inform you that the master and mistress have retired for the evening-."

"I do not require their assistance," Tokio managed, in the wake of her terror forgetting all formalities. "I am Takagi Tokio- I am the servant of Lady Kurasawa, from up the road. An errand I was running has gone amiss, and I was told to wait here for an escort back- back home." It wasn't necessarily an entirely believable story, but she realized that he saw her mussed hair and torn kimono, and smiled a little.

"Worry not, then, Ojou-san. This one would not dream of turning you away into the cold." Tokio didn't feel better until the gate had closed behind him with an audible click. "It is getting a bit late for travel, Ojou-san knows. Perhaps this one could ask for a guest room to be made up?"

"N-no," she mumbled, feeling the adrenaline letdown after the charged encounter in the woods. "I thank you, but no," she tried again, attempting to compose herself. "But, perhaps, someplace for to sit and wait…?"

"Of course," he smiled and bowed, leading the way across the darkened courtyard with his lantern. Most of the rooms were darkened, but some still had the light of lanterns glowing from within them. "Shall this one send for some company?"

"Thank you, but no. If you would be so kind as to alert me when my escort comes, however?"

He nodded, and she got the strange sense that he seemed to like it when she made sure to speak in a superior manner to him. "Of course, Ojou-san."

They arrived at a shoji door, and he opened it, setting down his lantern to light the one sitting on the table there. As requested, the room was completely empty. As he worked, she slipped off her geta, setting them by the door.

"There," he remarked, stepping past her and back out onto the engawa. "This one hopes that this room is suitable for you, Ojou-san."

"It is," she replied simply, nodded his dismissal. "Thank you very much."

"Please summon this servant if you require anything else."

"I shall," she nodded again slightly, desperately wishing to be left alone, "Thank you."

He bowed and departed once again for his post, and Tokio sunk down into a seated position in front of the table. As she brought her hands up to rest on the table, something clattered out of her fist, and she stared.

She had been holding the kitchen knife that Yaso had tried to come after her with the entire time. It shone dully in the candlelight, riveting Tokio's eyes to it. The events of the evening slowly came back to her. What, exactly, had taken place back there in the forest? What was wrong with Yaso? She had had every intention of harming Tokio, and why? She had been stumbling back all alone, as if some kind of ghostly spectre from children's tales, a hunting, predatory look on her face. Hajime had suspected this would happen- why did he not warn her? Why did he not insist on leaving her behind, in safety? Wrenching her gaze away from the knife's blade, she concentrated instead on her clenched hands, willing them to stop shaking.

Hajime had not warned her, she reasoned firmly, purposely avoiding looking at the knife, out of respect for his wife. If she had not been that way when they had found her at the Uenos', it would have done her nothing but a disservice. He did not insist that she stay behind out of deference for Kurasawa-san, and again out of respect for Yaso.

Why it had happened in the first place, she had no idea. She wished an escort would come, so she could return home. For one unguarded, almost sinful-feeling moment, Tokio closed her eyes and lifted her face toward the ceiling, and wished with all her heart that she could be, once again, with Teru-hime, wishing that once again she could be her lady-in-waiting once more, wishing that she could return to Tokyo with Teru-chan when she left. She did not want to marry a Tonami man, she did not much care to marry any man in general, and only one in specific, and one whom she had no chance with. She wanted to be a child again, with her family, or a younger woman, spending her days freely with Teru-hime. Perhaps this one event was the raindrop that overflowed the bucket at last, a bucket of sadness, confusion, and suffering that had begun to fill since the siege at Crane Castle. Since the first time she, while defending the castle, had killed a man. Since the first time, perhaps, when she had awoken one morning and seen the army camped out, had heard the fearful rumors of the fates of the women there at the Castle, since the first time she had knelt too-calmly by Teru-hime's side as she spoke of the coming battles.

Takagi Tokio, daughter of the illustrious Takagi family, faithful servant to Matsudaira Teru-hime, combat veteran and aimless, drifting exile, was tired. She had had enough of being tossed on the stormy, uncaring seas of fate.

But there was nothing she could do, she reminded herself as the shoji clacked open, as the dark, shadowed man stood there wordlessly, looking down at her, as her usual calm, expressionless façade clicked over her face once again, there was nothing she could do except to ride the storm, or drown in it.

"Takagi-san," Saitou Hajime, ex-Shinsengumi captain, warrior, and forgotten exile, stood at the door and spoke firmly, in a voice that was both understanding and not to be ignored. "It's time to leave."

"Would the lady like a jacket? This one is sure that Milady Ueno has an old one to spar-."

"No, she wouldn't," Saitou cut in firmly, "She would like very much to return home as quickly as possible. Takagi-san, let us return to your residence."

Taking a deep breath that pulled her a hair's breadth away from falling again into desperation, she snapped her eyes open. "Of course, Fujita-san. I am quite ready to return home."

The two said nothing until the gate was closed and latched behind them. It was now certainly quite dark, and neither knew exactly what to say that would bridge the wide gap that had appeared between them after Yaso's outburst. Tokio both did and didn't want to know what had happened, and she wasn't sure that she could handle the truth at that moment. Saitou Hajime seemed to know this, but yet felt as if an explanation was warranted to this woman, if to no one else.

So. "Tokio," he began, but a quick, sharp sigh cut him off.

"Not now, Saitou-san, I beg you," she replied, face turned just far enough away from him that he couldn't make out the nature of the features on her face.

"Tokio-," he tried again, a little more angry now, that she slighted him.

"Please, Saitou-san, please, no. Let it rest."

"I do not know when I will be able to speak with you about this again, little bird."

Tokio froze for a moment. Was that gentleness that she had heard? Patience, in the wolf's voice? Unlikely, she decided.

"Some other day, Hajime," she replied, with a slight nod of her head, "You are quite adept at finding me without others knowing it."

Suddenly, somehow, he was behind her as she tried to walk onward, one hand on each of her shoulders telling her it would be foolish, if not impossible, to walk away from him. "Do you think," he began, quite lowly and dangerously, "That I am not also sick of hiding our relationship? That I think we should be wed right now, instead of myself and Yaso? Do you believe that I am not tired of walking this thin line between what I want and what I have? We are both unhappy here, Tokio. Between us, I will have nothing but honesty. Do you believe that I am this patient with everyone? You should know by now that I am not."

"Alright, Hajime," she replied evenly, drawing another deep breath, "I will hear the truth about Yaso." He released her as soon as she uttered the words, and came to her side once again. As they began to walk once more, she hesitantly reached out, brushing her knuckles against his hand tentatively. Before she could withdraw again, he had enveloped her hand in his own, saying nothing about it.

"Yaso's illness is eating away at her mind, Tokio. We do not entirely know why, but it makes her… insane. Following these periods of strangeness, she collapses in exhaustion for many days. To make it worse," he paused for a moment in the verbal equivalent of a grimace, "Yaso is often very much taken with drink to forget her problems. Unfortunately, this makes her even more strange, and dangerous. Over this past winter, she has begun havig strong seizures, that are dangerous to her own health. The doctor says she will live for two more years, at most- if you were to ask my opinion, no more than five."

"Yaso-san is indeed a fighter," she murmured, poring over this information in her mind. "But this must be very taxing on her."

The wolf's face and voice were unreadable as he replied, "It is."

Tokio's geta kicked up a small pebble, and it clacked away into the night. She watched and listened after it for a moment, and then continued on in demure silence, eyes following the ground in front of her, hand gently clasped still within his.

The moon watched silently, and everything was still, not even a breeze moved, except for the two, walking silently home.


	12. Chapter 12

Author's note: Ahh… my most sincere apologies. I said the next chapter would be up in a week, and either that was the longest week in the entire history of time, or, more likely, I have been a bad author. In addition, this chapter is a bit odd in itself, and offers a rather new perspective on a new facet of Takagi Tokio. She's a bit on the berserker side, I guess. I had such a difficult time writing this chapter, it is as of yet really unedited for grammatical mistakes, but I figured I should probably just get it up. It sets the stage for things in the future, but it's not a very cute romantic chapter. Any usual disclaimers apply, and please let me know if you have any questions, and I will try to answer them in the next chapter. Now that this chapter has had its painful birth at last, the coming ones should be much easier to write. Once again, my apologies at the wait. –Murasaki

Late Spring, 1873

"Takagi-sensei! Look! The bugs are all lined up on the log!" Nakaji, one of the younger boys, came and tugged on her kimono. It was a bright, wet day, a break in the spring rains, and Tokio had taken advantage of the opportunity to get the children outside, and to gather more food. Kurasawa Keiko fretted daily, and Tokio was similarly ill at ease from the looks of their stores. Winter had devastated them.

"Stupid Nakaji!" One of the other boys bellowed, of Nakaji's same age-group, "Those ones are too small to eat! Fujita-oneesan can't make anything out of those!"

"Iya," she replied softly as the little boy's eyes filled, looking up at her, "It's a good discovery, Nakaji-kun. We must remember that even in the worst of times, we must still keep on marching forward, just like those little ones, ne?"

Nakaji was not the only one to nod assent. Tokio was with the boys today. Yaso, pleading the need to have a day out, was with the more obedient girls, waiting and keeping an eye on them while they gathered berries and plants. Tokio didn't quite trust the boys to find the correct mushrooms.

"Grasshoppers!" Someone cried, one of the older boys, from a field a little farther on, and with that, everyone was off. Tokio smiled as she watched them go. She trusted them to capture as many as they possibly could. When she reflected on it, she couldn't imagine that those boys could catch enough grasshoppers to feed the entire household, but they had no real choice. Perhaps they would find other things on their way home today, as well.

The Kurasawas still had food, of course. For the moment, they were able and prepared to care for everyone, but things looked very lean for the future, and they wanted to save as much as they possibly could. Every grain of rice was budgeted, and carefully preserved to avoid insects polluting the food. Although, she remarked inwardly, the insects would just provide more protein. No one threw out rice anymore if they could possibly, possibly avoid it.

As the boys shouted their victories from the field up ahead, she shook off her gloomy thoughts. There was nothing to be achieved by dwelling on them.

Instead, she walked slowly, taking her time, giving the boys as much time as possible to get their prizes. It was a beautiful day, and the plants and trees were green and healthy. In earlier times, when she was a younger girl, she too would've frolicked happily with other children on days such as these. Before everything… before so many things had happened. She closed her eyes, feeling the exhaustion lurking ever too closely, just waiting for her duties to be fulfilled for the day, before creeping up on her.

She had begun to wonder, the past few months, if perhaps she would die in Tonami. Perhaps she ought to acquiesce to what seemed to be her fate- to settle down and live here. It was foolish to expect such happiness that a life with Hajime would give her. It was foolish to expect happiness at all anymore, especially when the danger of starving was so near. If she moved out of the Kurasawa household, they would have one less mouth to feed. In a few months, it might actually make a marked difference.

But the spring day was too beautiful, and it pulled her back out from the darkness of her thoughts. Even the rough feeling of paper in her sleeve, where she had secreted away a very important letter, was not enough to keep her in the darkness of her mind. _Wait_, as Teru-hime had once said, back at Crane Castle, overlooking the battlefield, _wait until the night falls. The day shall haunt you then._

"Takagi-sensei!" A couple of the boys shouted, running towards her with the small baskets, teeming with grasshoppers. "Takagi-sensei!"

"Be careful!" She responded with a quick smile, holding out a hand in warning, "Don't let those spill!"

The fear in their faces, and of the boys that followed closely behind, made her freeze. Had they seen something over the hill? The boys clustered around her, pulling at her kimono and babbling.

"Sensei, sensei, men in the forest!"

"There were men there, at the edge of the field!"

"Sensei, we should run away!"

One tugging was more persistent than the others, "Sensei…" Tokio looked down to find, to her surprise, a boy's face streaked with tears. Was Koji so scared? The rest of the faces were white, but not streaked with tears-. "Sensei, Nakaji-kun isn't here."

"What?" She asked numbly, while counting the boys in her head. One short. Count again- one short.

"Nakaji-kun is gone… He was determined to find more grasshoppers so that no one would laugh at him. He was with us before…"

_Keep calm,_ she chastised herself. _First, the children._

"Stay calm, everyone, please." The children quieted, seeing the look on Takagi-sensei's face that she was wasn't even aware she wore. "Now, I want all of you to stay together, alright? Everyone find a partner and take their hand. Now stay together in one big group, and go as fast as you can to Fujita-oneesan, alright? Tell her what has happened, and bring her and the girls back to the house and tell them what happened. The adults at the house will know what to do. Do you understand?"

There was nodding and vigorous, "Hai, hai," exclamations.

"Don't lose each other," she commanded, "Now, go."

"What about you, Takagi-sensei?" Koji asked, pulling on her sleeve again with the hand that wasn't holding onto Seta's, another boy.

"I'll be fine. Go, and hurry. I wish you well."

A bit hesitatingly at first, then quickly, the boys gathered up the food they had gathered, grasped hands, and hurried off in two lines across the field.

Tokio sighed in relief. _Teru-hime would've had a good chuckle,_ she reflected, _She always knew I never liked being responsible for innocents- it made me too nervous at Crane Castle._

Her mind was already taking on a new perspective, and she could feel the shift. No matter how long it had been since she had fought in battles, both from inside the castle down upon the combatants and hand-to-hand, face-to-face, out on the battlefields, she felt her senses sharpen, her fear die down, and her sense of purpose and intent flare up again. There was no time or inclination to worry about it, as she would if she had seen it in Hajime, only the need for blood in her heart.

She had no weapon, of course, but a large, sturdy fallen branch took care of that- it was not quite as long, nor was it bladed, as her naginata had been, but it would do in a pinch. She left her shoes where she was- women's shoes were more difficult to fight in- and adjusted her kimono to give her a little more range in movement.

It was all coming back to her now. Teeth slightly bared behind closed lips framed by a face that revealed nothing at all, Takagi Tokio, war veteran and member of the Joushitai.

----

Fujita Goro sat calmly on the engawa, next to an equally calm Aomura Yuuna, near a standing, fidgeting Kurasawa Keiko, and a deeply serious Kurasawa Heijiemon. The boys had just finished their story of the kidnapped young boy, and Takagi-sensei's orders, and there was a moment of quiet. Shirou had gone with a couple others to bar the gate and post a watch.

"We have every reason to believe that this group is nothing more than a bunch of hungry bandits," Heijiemon spoke aloud at last, "Who will use their hostage as a means of demanding food from our supplies."

"Something similar happened to the Sukagawas last month," Keiko murmured nervously, fidgeting even harder with her hands than Fujita even thought was possible. Yaso evidently noticed the look on her husband's face, unreadable to almost anyone else- _there was that little, infinitesimally small twitch of the left eye, you see…_

"Kurasawa-san, perhaps if you would be so kind as to help me calm down the children… I am sure that our men are able to handle any trouble that may arise. Let us turn our thoughts to other important ways we may be of assistance."

"I will organize a watch to be posted all around the walls to the household," Aomura said suddenly, coldly, causing everyone to stare, even Fujita, who gave her a serious, if swift glance. Comforting her as much as the children, an exhausted looking Yaso led the children away to a room indoors. "We will see them if they decide to stage an attack. Any man who might use a sling shall report to me, or any man with a weapon of his own. We will station a group of men who can use hand-to-hand weapons of any variety by the main gate, in the event that something unforeseen may happen."

None of the other men gathered around seemed to be able to get around the fact that the sweet, quiet Aomura Yuuna had undergone a complete personality change, but Saitou Hajime knew a leader of men when he saw one, and ranked the need to secure the household over his desire to gawp at a woman stepping into battle command. Stubbing out his cigarette on the stone step below the engawa, he rose to his feet.

"Very well," he said, in a voice as dispassionate as Aomura's own. "Put my wife in charge of distributing supplies and feeding the hungry combatants. She will know what to do. Prepare a room in the event of any injuries. We do not know what we are up against."

The crowd dispersed, and shouted orders began to fill the courtyard. Saitou was just turning away to gather his own supplies to go out and find Tokio when a distinct voice rapped out his name behind him.

"Fujita Goro-san," Aomura Yuuna said crisply, "If you can carry it with you, my naginata is in my room. If you are pursuing Takagi-san, once you find her, she will need it."

He turned to face the woman, who half-shrugged in an odd sort of way and continued, by means of explanation, "The Kurasawas wouldn't let her bring hers, even though Matsudaira-hime had been able to keep it for her, when they were exiled. They wanted her to become a good lady, with no thoughts of war."

Both did a disbelieving snort at the same time, but Yuuna did not smile. "Takagi-san will know how to use mine, and it will be better than whatever she has armed herself with now."

His eyebrows furrowed. "She will be proficient?"

To that, Aomura only chuckled and waved him away.

----

Tokio found the camp in a moderately large clearing within the forest. Quiet as any other inhabitant of the forest, she scanned the makeshift dwellings that had been erected against the outdoors. A large fire in the middle of the clearing was being built up by two wiry men. From what they looked like, and how malnourished they were, she decided that they were just like many of the unlucky ones, people with no place to go, who had been starved out of any shelter they had, trying to survive any way they could. Wandering and homeless, and in such an unforgiving place as Tonami, nowadays. They were just hungry- starving- of course. But the Kurasawas didn't have enough food, either.

Like in the other battles, and all the times she had protected Teru-hime, she was overcome with the knowledge that there was nothing more to life than _taking_ what was hers, and _protecting_ it to the bitter end. While the small, rational-Tokio voice told her this was just a reaction to her old memories and the situation she was in, rational-Tokio was vastly outweighed, and mostly ignored.

But she was not stupid. She saw the racks of weapons, and the sentries posted within the clearing, and so she memorized the place and withdrew, silent as the air around her.

It was getting later, she noted, looking at the sky from her withdraw point at the edge of the forest. The bandits seemed to have all returned from their foraging- the men that the boys had seen earlier were gone- to begin to settle down for the evening. Tokio noticed she was getting hungry, her feet were in shreds, having had softened up over the time she had not been in the fields or in battle, playing at being a noblewoman with Kurasawa-san. At one point, she also realized that she was contemplating at taking on an entire camp of armed men with a long tree branch.

_I will never travel here without being armed again,_ she promised, thinking of her beloved naginata, still in storage somewhere only Teru-hime knew, thinking of anything that had a blade. If it had a way to do damage, she could at least work with it.

Tokio felt him before she saw him, keeping to the edge of the woods, staying low, unaware of her presence. Scraggly, like all the other bandits, but clearly running away from something, not to her. She positioned her slight figure behind a tree and waited, silently and unmoving. The idiot ran right by her, cutting into the forest in an attempt to get back to camp as quickly as possible.

He was down before he even realized what had happened, bleeding from the area where the neck met the skull. No scream, barely a hint of surprise, and no breathing. Tokio barely looked down at him before taking off in the direction that he had come from. The Kurasawas, she reasoned, had probably sent someone to help.

Or, as seemed to be the case in the past, a man who damned all the consequences and came whether the Kurasawas or anyone else liked it or not.

-----

They ate quietly and quickly from the supplies that Hajime had brought, hardly saying a word. Once they had been fortified, he handed over the naginata, and Tokio filled him in on the details while flowing into the old well-remembered forms and positions with it like water, reacquainting herself wth the weight and balance.

"Aomura sent it," he explained gruffly, watching her move, completely at one with the long weapon in her hand. He felt as if he was near his usual Tokio in physical form, but the spirit inside had been changed, stripped down to nothing but water flowing over smooth, polished metal. Instead of the slightly annoying bird that he did enjoy vexing, there was someone more like a war comrade in her than a high-born woman.

The day never ceased to amaze him.

They outlined their plan rapidly- They would go in near each other, but with enough of a distance apart to allow for each individual's attacks to have full range of motion. Once the initial onslaught was taken care of, or the group had surrendered, Tokio would find the child, while Hajime would watch her back, fending off any potential problems while she retrieved the child. Then they would return for the household, and ensure that no attack would follow on the house itself.

Both were quiet, both from concentration and from awkwardness- neither quite knew how to approach the other. Hajime was a bit unnerved- not that he would ever admit it- about the fact that Tokio seemed so focused that she didn't even seem to notice that she was leaving blood wherever she stepped. The blood immediately soaked into the dark soil, and no one seemed to have utilized any path left behind by them, so he said nothing. His discomfort only grew when they passed the dead body partially hidden behind a tree, and he realized where the blood on the end of her branch had come from. It wasn't the death that bothered him, of course- how many had he killed in his lifetime? But the fact that _Tokio_ had done the killing, and had not even mentionedit. It did not seem to worry her.

They paused for a moment at the edge of the camp, where people were starting to emerge from tents to come near the fire- Saitou counted six tents total, each seeming to have seven or so men inside. There was no sign of women or other children, and so he concluded that this was more of a foraging party, and the dependents were waiting somewhere else for them to come back with stolen food.

He motioned Tokio forward, and almost jumped as she released a blood-curdling war scream as they charged into the clearing. Immediately, everyone was out of tents, some staring in a moment of confusion, others running for the weapon racks. There was no sign of the boy, and he hoped Tokio noticed that for herself- the sentries and some who were already sparring were upon them.

_In the name of all the gods…_ was his only thought as he glimpsed Tokio's naginata fly, spinning blurrily, cutting through the air around her seamlessly, before the men were upon him, too. Mechanically, he felled them.

Had they been facing Fujita Goro, poor samurai's son and exiled farmer, they would have stood a very good chance, especially in their numbers in the near fifties. But they were facing someone of much higher caliber- Saitou Hajime, captain of the Shinsengumi, and he felled them as easily and without concern as a child would pick a flower.

Tokio had learned long ago that the key to a battle with severely unequal numbers was speed, and she watched through the blurry veil that her naginata made as it spun and flashed, reaching out to pluck another man's life or slash tendons or pick a weapon out of a hand before sending the man to the ground. She stood by, that small part of her, and watched herself methodically kill, dispassionately, as the men around her fought and died and fell to the ground like flower petals.

Someone, somewhere, managed to get a long, shallow cut all the way up her arm and onto her shoulder, more a stray blade cut than anything else, when three other men rushed her. She killed the three and then put the other man down. A part of her consciousness noticed as a few men fled off into the woods, and none of her consciousness noticed the blood that fell freely from her arm.

They were all dead, or too wounded to move, surrounding her in a scattered pile of bodies. Saitou finished off his last, 'kindly' putting him out of his misery, and turned to find Tokio, breathing hard. Tokio just stared around her, looking at the wide-eyed dead, exhausted to the point of collapse, and put a hand to her head.

"Tokio," she thought she heard one of them whisper, and she zeroed in on a man whose neck had been partially severed from his head. His spirit must've had great power over her, because she was being shaken violently…

She looked up, and there was Saitou Hajime, with his hands on her waist, mouth wide open but making no noise… how odd, Hajime didn't usually sit around looking like a fool… She reached up dazedly and touched his face.

The silence in her mind shattered, and she discovered the whisper had really been his shout, him shouting her name, his hands around her waist shaking her violently, not wanting to touch her injured arm. There were quite a few men still alive, but very wounded or too scared to stand up, and she could hear cries and moans.

"Hai, hai, Hajime, I'm alright…" She brushed some blood off her face.

"It's… loss…" He said, and seemed to be weaving in and out. Thoughts were coming slowly… The only reason she was still standing was because… why? Oh. Because he was holding her up.

"What?" She asked blurrily.

"Blood loss, Tokio, you idiot," he scolded, investigating the wound that had cut away part of her kimono. "A little bird like you doesn't have much of it to lose." He ripped up some of his shirt, the western-style shirt that he had, and bound up the arm as best he could, tightly, but not too tight.

Once he had done all he could, he handed her the naginata, which she supported her weight on using her good arm. "I'll watch your back," he told her, two fingers under her chin to force her to stay awake and look at him, "But you will have to go into the tent and get the kid, alright? I'm the only one in any condition to fight and I have to make sure none of these guys get back up or come back from wherever they've run off to."

Tokio nodded miserably, and hobbled over to the first tent. Hajime went into the entrance, and made sure there was no one inside, then they moved onto the next. In the fourth tent, they found the kid, tied up and gagged in the back. He was unconscious, but seemed uninjured and was still breathing. Hajime slung the kid over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and they stepped out, walking past the dead and the wounded. On their way out of the clearing, Hajime stopped and cleared his throat.

"Come near the Kurasawa house and this will have been nothing. Stay away from us and the inhabitants of that house," he shouted across the clearing.

Tokio nodded her weary assent, and only later was conscious enough to be able to marvel at how they had gotten out of the woods and home in the late twilight without any further incident. If there had been anyone left over in the forest, they had chosen not to confront the two warriors.

They barely spoke on the way home, in fear of waking the child, in fear that Tokio would keel over from exhaustion, and because they had no idea what to say to each other. Once back at the residence, Yaso and Yuuna came forward to take the fainting Tokio, who had walked all the way back home without any assistance from Fujita-san, and he went another direction, to return the young boy to Kurasawa Keiko until he woke up and recovered from his ordeal.

After he left the child under the assurance that he would be alright with Keiko, he turned to his own room, to sleep and to think. If anyone bothered him, or stopped him to ask what happened, he brushed them off in a tired haze. There was too much going on inside his head and too little energy inside his body to deal with babbling idiots, he decided.

Although Yuuna kept her people on watch throughout the night, and all through the coming days, no trouble came to the household. Exhausted, everyone not assigned to some sort of duty fell into sleep.

Takagi Tokio dreamed of looking out over the castle walls in into a coming battle, and Saitou Hajime, near his wife in their room, dreamed of a high-born warrior who moved like water. Kurasawa Keiko dreamed of how life was before the war, and no one could understand the dreams of death dwelling in Fujita Yaso's head. Aomura Yuuna stayed awake, and slapped the dreams away like biting flies, keeping watch on the house through the night.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: I'm not dead, I promise! It has been a long time, I know. For the summer months, my computer (where Bird in Hand makes its residence) and I were separated. I did contemplate writing an update even though we were separated by a few thousand miles, but all my notes are also on here, and it didn't feel right. So, in the interest of giving you something –good- to read, I held off. Now school has started again, more regular updates may once again be expected. I've missed writing this. Also, on an unrelated note, I must express my deepest thanks to all of you for reading, and sticking with Bird in Hand, and also for nominating me into the RKRC awards. While I believe the category that BIH was nominated for did not have enough entries to be judged, it's the thought that counts, and I mean that sincerely. Thank you so much for your support.

After this chapter, things really start to avalanche, and I tried to capture that spirit here in this one, while also trying to give a feeling of interlude, with the foreboding of the future looming ahead. Tokio-chan seems a little dense about it, though…

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Takagi Tokio lost composure, and did a double take, something very much not in keeping with her usual demeanor.

Saitou Hajime found this very funny, and was hard-put to contain his mirth. He managed to keep his face in a straight line by thinking only 'Fujita Goro' thoughts- especially considering that his wife was walking right beside him.

"Don't trip, Tokio-chan," Yaso commented dryly, from her husband's side, completely unaware of what had just transpired. "I would hate for that laundry to spill."

A smile played over the high-born woman's mouth. "Of course, Yaso-san." Readjusting the large laundry basket in her arms with grace, she bathed her face contentedly in the sun as she continued to walk ahead of the couple. Saitou thought to himself that Tokio looked more like a nymph than a bird today.

The three were all out at once, together, for the first time in months. It was another beautiful day, and they had taken the laundry down to the river, and generally had had a good time, gossiping and talking while Yaso's husband looked moodily on and smoked his cigarettes, which she occasionally also stole. Now it was late afternoon, it was time to get back to prepare dinner for the household, Goro and Tokio were loaded down with laundry and Yaso was loaded down with sarcasm, and they were walking back along the road.

Tokio felt the afternoon sun on her face, and, eyes partway closed, shifted the large basket so she could balance it in one arm, stretching the other one out as if to stretch a cramp out of it, and flared her fingers wide, before reshifting the basket back to hold it as if nothing had ever happened.

"I do hope that basket isn't too heavy for you, Tokio-chan," Yaso prodded teasingly, in her usual way.

"No, Yaso-san. Just a cramp in my my hand," Tokio replied in a similar tone. Saitou relaxed at the sound of their usual banter, assured that Yaso had not noticed anything out of the ordinary.

Tokio still remembered the old sign- good. He hadn't used what she called 'the special look' –foolish name- in two years, to summon her to meet with him after dark, and he wasn't entirely sure she'd remember what it meant. But she had, and had used her reply of assent- a hand stretching out, like the wings of her nickname.

It had been a few weeks since the kidnapping of Nakaji, since they had fought side by side, and he had felt both a new kind of connection developing between them just as another connection was drifting apart. It was as if the two of them shared a secret, making them into comrades, but the connection of them as lovers had been lacking.

By all accounts, that should have made him glad, and put them both more at ease, but it somehow didn't. The connection, he decided, was fraying, but feelings were just as strong. Years had now passed since they had first met, but yet in some ways it seemed only the other week that he had first glimpsed her from the wagon, where something had sparked within him that he hadn't thought he would ever feel again.

He did not want to lose the little bird, even if it meant unhappiness for the both of them. It wasn't like anyone could ask for happiness anymore, anyway. Life was too short- as the woman walking gingerly next to him would attest to.

Yaso's health was failing, it was becoming more and more plain to see. One morning, two months ago, she had woken to complain that the very edges of her eyesight were turning to black, and she could no longer see out of the very corners of her eyes. When her hands had moved to get herself out of bed, they had shaken badly- he had never seen her so upset in quite that way before. In the end, he had picked her up, hefted her into his arms, and taken her to the wardrobe. For once, she had not complained, which had worried him more than anything else.

Since he and Tokio had fought together, he had done a fair amount of thinking. While his dreams were filled with a darting, lithe bird-like woman with long shadowy hair and a healthy, if slightly ironic, sense of humor about the world around her- when she wasn't overwhelmed by her circumstances-, he was also becoming more and more aware of his duty to Yaso. Duty was an old hat to every alias he had ever been- his father had spouted its virtues so strongly when he was a child, and the pull had only grown stronger with age- and he felt its pull again.

Tokio was strong- he had seen that- and had such inner strength that even he had not fully understood it until he had seen her wield her weapon. She would be fine- she could take care of herself. He owed a duty to Yaso, and would turn to fulfilling that duty singlemindedly. Tokio had promised to wait for him, and they took any promises they made to each other quite seriously.

Why then, one might logically ask, would he wish to meet privately with Tokio tonight? He could not answer any better than her hair as it shone in the sunlight, or in the gentle, sweeping curves of her neck, or in her musical, amused laugh as she chuckled about something Yaso said.

As they traveled, they walked past the finally reconstructed Ueno residence, and all three stopped unanimously for just a moment outside of the gate. Tokio reflected on the ravaging nature of the fire, her face turned up toward the building, while outside of her view, a wolf-like stature wondered about her train of thought, watching her surreptitiously out of his own eye. Thankfully, this summer, while it thus far had been hot and dry, it did not seem to making the same pattern as the summer of the fire. With a shock, she realized she had been living with the Kurasawas for a little more than three years.

As she stood there, feeling the hot July wind, she could almost feel the heat of the words hidden in a letter inside her sleeve, a letter she had been carrying around for the last few weeks, unable to leave it behind even as she left the house for menial chores. A letter that meant as much to her as the friendships she had come to cultivate here in Tonami. Nothing would bring her back to her old life, never again would she be of the illustrious and well-connected Takagi family- her last name would forever be a relic. But it did not mean that she was lost forever here, a maidservant for a family of a stature like the Kurasawas- exalted within their boundaries, but humble.

For even though her family was either dead or spread to the noncorporeal winds that lately typhooned across Japan, she still had friends that remembered her. Matsudaira Teru-hime, safely back with her family in Tokyo, also collecting the fragments of her past life, had not forgotten her, in fact had gone so far as to label her as one of the fragments she wished, once more, to retrieve.

Once more, hope stirred in Takagi Tokio's heart.

"I hate old memories," Yaso grumbled, staring at the new walls and paper windows. "Why are we still standing here? There is no point in remembering what once was. Soon the 'once was' will become nothing once again, along with the present. Life is the burden we bear to land in the blissful sleep of death."

"Don't say that," her husband said sharply. Both women took notice- Yaso by staring at him, Tokio by cocking her head slightly. After a moment, Yaso narrowed her eyes a little, and shook it off.

"Don't stew all day in memories, Tokio-chan," she implored, a little more gently than before, turning her head a little more than would usually be necessary to see her friend. From the way she squinted, Goro knew she was straining to see.

"I will not," Tokio replied absent-mindedly, turning to smile at her friend, shifting the basket to pat her hand. "Do not worry about me, Yaso-san. I was merely thinking what a joy it would be to return to the city."

"Our little girl, outgrowing her role as a little country mouse? Tired of our poverty?" Yaso mocked. They resumed their walking, Saitou watching Tokio intently, wondering what was going on inside of her head. This turn of events seemed to validate their meeting that night. Although she would greatly offend the Kurasawas by leaving, and she was deeply indebted to them, he knew that the incident with the bandits and the boy had changed something within her. She had not gone back to being the docile servant- she seemed to remember the strength that she could draw from herself.

This development both heartened him as well as equally concerned him. He knew the strength that filled the well from which she drew- and perhaps it was better for her to remain quiet. He was worried that she had forgotten the bleak heaviness that drawing her strength of will from the strength of her steel, and how it felt, how it fettered the soul. A chained bird could not fly, and indeed it seemed as if she had grown, along with her greater determination, more desperate in the past weeks.

"Tired of the dead-end roads, Yaso-san, mostly," Tokio replied. If she knew the path of his thoughts involved her, she ignored it completely.

"I cannot tell if you are as naïve as you ever were to say such a thing," Yaso remarked, "Or if something has happened to make the little chick grow up into a bird."

Tokio fell silent, but only Saitou seemed to catch the oppressiveness of something hidden in her manner. In the silence that followed, Yaso commented occasionally about one thing or another, illiciting a response out of one of her companions. From the outside, it seemed pleasant enough. Each of them, however, noticed something amiss. Yaso remembered idly her old life, a past life, her father- a samurai, not an especially rich or powerful one. He had very little in the way of possessions- a little bit of land which had disappeared after the beginning of the chaos, fallen to wicked, or perhaps just desperate men just as easily as he himself had fallen to their swords.

To continue to follow those thoughts, she would fall into the pools of bloody darkness, the place that made her insane, the place where the world around her seemed to dilate…

A hand came down sharply on her shoulder. So quickly it made her neck pop, she turned to look up. Her husband, agilely holding his basket in one hand, stared back down at her. He said nothing, but the look in his eyes told her all she needed to know. She had almost lost touch with herself again, lost touch with the present. The things she said to Tokio-chan weren't all just idle, bitter trifles.

Once again, Fujita Yaso bit back the coppery tang of fear that seeped into her mouth. She cast one fearful, pleading look to the only one she could trust- her husband.

Perhaps toward the beginning of their marriage, he would have turned away, but he had aged like the leaves on the trees would age as the summer progressed, into the more mature greens, from the bright, short lived colors of the spring. Instead, his hand dropped to the small of her back for a moment before sliding away like water.

Tokio mentioned nothing about the encounter, instead taking Fujita's cue to keep walking when his hand slid off her back. They walked silently, occasionally punctuated by Tokio absentmindedly humming a few notes of a children's song. The carefree song nettled Yaso a little- that the woman had stood, metaphorically at least, up to her knees in blood, but yet could still face each day with a clean conscience. What bravery could provide for the soul.

_Now I am both cowardly and jealous,_ Yaso thought with a sorrowful smirk.

They crossed the small, worn bridge over the small brook that signaled the turn for the Kurasawa residence. As soon as their geta clopped across it, Tokio's humming changed from the disjointed tune to singing the actual words of the song. It was a song that the children at the Kurasawa house often played a game to, and the song fell vaguely in tune with the sound of their geta hitting against the bridge, then beating again on the dusty path of the road.

After a moment, lower, more earthen tones joined hers- the voice of a worn woman, tired and old beyond her years- and Yaso was shocked beyond shocked to realize that she was singing along with the younger woman. Horrified, she tried to stop, to close her lips around the tune, but her mouth, seemingly of her own volition, shaped the words of its own will.

"Mmph," Fujita Goro said callously, but he too, fell into humming it, to accompany the women. The walls of the enclosure were looming ever closer, and they passed the last shrub on their way up to the gate. Their song died as the gateman greeted them, and, gentlemanlike, Saitou held open the gate for the women as they walked through, exchanging a quip or two.

Just as she walked inside the gate, Tokio heard from the shrub the song start up again, three small children's voices singing.

"_Touryanse, Touryanse…"_

Smiling, she nodded at the gateman, who indicated that he had his eye on them.

"_Koko wa doko no hosomichi ja?"_

The gate clacked shut behind her, just as the hot summer wind kicked up dust once again.

A few hours later, Tokio found herself doing Kurasawa-san's mending. Long ago, in days much more innocent than the ones lurking in recent memory, the chore of mending had become habit, leaving her mind open to pursue other things. At her side, mending the children's clothes, was the silent Aomura Yuuna. Tokio did not mind her silence, which had somehow become more companionable after the incident with Nakaji-kun.

The gate clacked open to the courtyard, and she heard the gateman's laugh clear from the engawa. Continuing to stitch, she looked up only when a few of the youngest children looked about ready to crawl up into her lap.

"Takagi-sensei! Takagi-sensei!" They chirruped in their usual bird-calls. Behind them, slightly older children swarmed, and two young men and one young woman stood at the back, loaded down with water buckets, on their way to do the wash.

Looking up at one of the older children, she asked calmly in the face of such excitement, "What has happened? The children are certainly excited."

The youngest children continued chirping like cicadas as one of the older ones, a stern-faced but soft spoken girl who had not been at the Kurasawas' long, said, "Rainclouds were spotted on the horizon today, Takagi-sensei. The children are excited about the rain."

"It is in the nature of children to do so," she conceded, "And in such a dry summer, it would be wise to make the most of it that we can."

As the elder children bowed and continued about their tasks, the children tried to imitate them and also ran off. As the two women continued at their mending, Aomura murmured, "Such children… if next year they were able to attend school, the horrors of these times could yet be burned away." Catching herself, she ducked her head, "Meaning no disrespect to you and your tutelage, of course, Takagi-san."

"There was no offense taken, Aomura-san. I know that their education now is haphazard at best." In the recent weeks, she had noticed a change in her acquaintance. She had gone from the gently smiling woman she had been, always with a sadness behind her eyes, to a much more gruff woman. Perhaps, Tokio thought, the polish behind which she hid her actions was finally burned away.

The children ran by her again- in the rabble, she caught a glimpse of Nakaji-kun, smiling and giggling. He'd gained quite some stature after his kidnapping, and did not seem to be too especially scared by it. Tokio knew at first that he'd had trouble sleeping at night, but now Aomura-san reported that he slept once again calmly.

"Tokio-chan!" Once again, she did not know how long it had been, she was called from her sewing. Looking at her sewing partner, she saw her still busily engaged at work. "Tokio-chan!" Yaso came out onto the engawa. "Be a dear, won't you, and help me with supper?"

"I can finish this here with the help of one of the girls, Takagi-san," Aomura-san said quietly, offering a rare smile.

"Thank you, Aomura-san, I am indebted to you."

A strange look passed over Yuuna's face. "A strange wind is blowing today, don't you think, Tokio-san?"

Tokio's eyebrows furrowed- yes, something, perhaps, had seemed a little odd about the day, but it had seemed like nothing more than one could put one's smallest finger on. Certainly nothing to merit a comment from the quiet Aomura-san, who had also never used her first name before. "Perhaps… Perhaps, I suppose. I believe it may be the incoming storm."

Aomura smiled sardonically, and waved her away. As she left, the new, cool wind blew away the word muttered underneath Aomura's breath.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Just got done with this chapter, and now I must run to work. I just wanted to let you all know that I am –deeply- grateful to those of you who nominated me for the RKRC fanfiction competition. Thank you all of you for your support of Bird in Hand. I'm glad to know that I have written something that has been interesting and good to read for all of you. Bird in Hand is competing in the "Drama" category. Story-wise, the story is finally moving ahead, as I promised. Happy reading, please review- Murasaki.

Saitou Hajime was on the outside of the wall to the Kurasawa residence, along with some of the boys, working on repairing where part of the wall had crumbled and collapsed, when a strange wind whipped up out of nowhere. For a moment, his breath caught in his throat- to him, the wind smelled rancid, like meat gone bad. None of the boys noticed however, although it did blow one of the youngest ones over, dropping him neatly in the dirt.

Fighting the urge to gag- the smell was gone even to him now- he turned back to his work, barking at one of the boys to bring another board over.

Tokio pushed open the door to the kitchen. Yaso-san had her back to her, cutting vegetables to be put into a stew. "It seems there is a storm coming in, Yaso-san," she commented idly, looking around the familier kitchen in hopes of seeing what exactly what Yaso needed her help with. "The rain will do us some good, although hopefully the boys can get the wall fixed before the storm hits."

Yaso said nothing, although Tokio knew she was probably just caught up in her work. She slid the door shut behind her, humming softly. Over time, she'd become very relaxed in the kitchen. As Yaso got more sick, she spent more time here. Taking off her shoes, she walked over toward her friend.

Kurasawa Keiko jerked awake, sweating. She hadn't been feeling well in the past week, but that dream, that dream had been particularly horrifying. She didn't think it had anything to do with the sickness- perhaps it was the weather. Sometimes storms brought bad dreams. If that was the price of water for her household, she would abide by it.

It was not the first nightmare she'd had about her dear Tokio-chan, although this one had been more violent than most. She used to tell her about the dreams, but Tokio, in her ever-polite way, had brushed them off. The younger generations didn't seem to take much stock in their elders' dreams anymore. Although, she reflected, Tokio-chan had seen and done things Keiko-chan could only imagine. Perhaps such reality clouded the mind from understanding the mystical realm.

Still, the nightmare had been disturbing. She laid in her bed, pondering on killing and death, in the way that only a person who has never seen it could. Outside, the sky turned a sickening shade of gray-green. The storm was moving in with its usual characteristic swiftness. Always taking the people below by surpise, huge, swelling raindrops fell to the ground. Children standing by baskets down below in the courtyard shrieked in joy as the drops hit the baskets.

Lightning shot across the sky, and thunder rolled. Some of the younger children ran for shelter, and were chased back out by the older children to look after their baskets.

"Yaso-san?" Tokio asked, coming up behind her. Yaso was not chopping vegetables as Tokio had thought. Dangling limply from her friend's hand was a radish- other vegetables had already been cut up into their respective piles. Next to the piles was a chunk of meat, also to be diced for the stew. Yaso's eyes were riveted to the meat, her nostrils flared. "Yaso-san? Are you feeling alright? You should lie down for a while, my friend, do try not to overexert yourself. You've done your share of work for today."

"My elder brother was gone when they attacked my home," Yaso said quietly, sounding in possession of herself enough that Tokio let out a little breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "It was myself, my father, my mother, my little sister on her back, and my little... my little brother."

Tentatively, Tokio put her hand on the other woman's shoulder. She didn't know exactly who 'they' were- in this war, so many people, so many sides, might have been responsible for destroying a village. "Yaso-san," she whispered, "It's not your fault. The world is too big and life is too sad to blame ourselves."

Yaso seemed not to hear her. "My father- he fell too easily below their swords. He had no time to tell his family anything- not even to run. My mother..." Her voice shook, her hands clenching around the radish and knife in her hands. "They threw my sister off her back, into the _cooking fire_. She burned to death. I will never... forget that sound."

Tokio could hear the coolness of the sound of the rain. Somehow, although everyone would have retreated into the house at the beginning of the rain unless they were watching baskets, she knew no one would come into the kitchen, not even Saitou Hajime. She was alone with Yaso. The rain isolated everything. There was nothing she could say to Yaso. She didn't know why this had come up now. It was perhaps, something in the wind. Sometimes the wind in the storms brought despair- didn't she know?

"My brother reached out to me, but I turned from him, left him as a sacrifice, as I ran. I pushed his hands away," Yaso's voice was steely now, "And I gave him up to the murderers. Because of it, I escaped with my life, and my shame."

Yaso's skin was clammy, her eyes blank. Although she was dimly aware of the kitchen around her, she was more consciously aware of another house in another time. And on her shoulder, a hand. Grasping at her, keeping her from falling entirely into her past. Damn that hand- she wanted to be there. She wanted to burn- she wanted to feel the pain. It was the only time she could live with herself. Something stretched too far in her mind- and snapped. And somehow the meat- the human- that had been behind her was now suddenly before her, and her knife was before her too, at the meat's throat.

Even Tokio was not entirely sure exactly how it happened, but she came to grips with her situation quickly enough- she was pinned against the table where Yaso had been kneeling, cutting vegetables, in a mostly reclined position, with Yaso's knife at her throat. "You've killed before," Yaso hissed lowly, stroking Tokio's neck gently with the knife. Tokio felt the skin being scraped away. Fear slipped into her bones. She knew how she must look to Yaso- afraid, in the same way that any helpless soon-to-be victim must look. Yaso's other arm, stronger than Tokio had thought it was, pinned her to the table. "But yet you can sleep at night- I've seen you, your face at peace."

"Yaso-san-."

"Shut up. I would take your life now, perhaps. Scream, and I will. I am a dying woman anyway, what would it matter? A dying- a damned woman, with nothing to lose, little bird. Nothing at all to lose, and I'd love to feel your blood against my skin."

She scraped again at the raw skin. Against her will, Tokio flinched, and the knife bit in just a tiny bit deeper. Yaso pulled it back, but looked only pleased with herself.

"I can do it. There would be nothing to stop me. You're nothing but pile of meat. We're nothing... but piles of meat, Tokio."

The lack of a title at the end of her name made it seem naked, defenseless.

"You never finished the story," Tokio said in a rush of breath, before Yaso could bring the knife back down.

Yaso's burning, feverish eyes focused down on her, "What?" She demanded harshly.

"You never finished the story. Your brother came and found you?"

The knife had gone back to taking away skin a little bit lower on her neck. Tokio felt the blood trickle down her throat, but knew better to move again, even though it tickled. "Yes. He found me in the woods, and we ran- mostly on foot- to the next city, and then eventually on to Tonami." The knife pressed harder, opening another cut. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"No," Tokio rasped, "You're still not finished. You came to Tonami-."

"And my elder brother died, leaving me alone!" Yaso's eyes and voice were now poisonous.

"In the care of the Uenos!" Tokio replied, her voice trying to leave in fear, "And then you were married to a man- Fujita Goro. He respects you, now."

"I saw you two the night before my wedding."

Tokio had suspected, somehow as much. It was always a fear that had lurked in her mind. "That was the end of it, Yaso-san, that was the end of it. We never met again. He has taken care of you more than he will ever take care of me! You are not a lonely woman any longer. You have friends, and a place, and a husband. Pray for your family- but let them go. Bury them. We were all foolish, we were all too young for what happened. Not youthful, just young."

Yaso released her very slightly, and Tokio, finally arrested by panic, pushed her way free. Yaso slumped along the ground by the table as if limply paralyzed. Tokio watched numbly as her feet took her to the door- no time to stop for her shoes- and out onto the engawa, pounding past people as they watched, startled, and out into the countryside, into the pounding rain.

"There went Tokio-san," one of the men who had earlier been working on the roof muttered amusedly to another man. "She's always so busy, running everywhere." No one seemed to have noticed her neck or her feet, "No doubt she realized she left her mending out by the river or some such. She did that the other week."

"She's a sweet girl," another agreed, and the easy laughter filled the courtyard. Saitou Hajime, however, completely missed by his friend and lover as she fled, had been right next to the gate, and had missed neither. Snuffing out his cigarette, he strode to the kitchen- he would have to pick up her shoes.

Inside, he found a slightly ruffled looking Yaso, kneeling at the table as if she would be cutting vegetables. However, the knife in her hand was not moving, and he saw blood, not radish juice, on the edge of the blade. "I'm not going to ask what you did," he said to his wife roughly, watching her flinch. "I am going to go clean up after you. Pack your things. We are leaving this house. Gods willing, that will be enough to save your reputation. You may only depend on Takagi-san to be gracious, you _foolish_ woman."

He took the younger woman's shoes and went immediately back out. Back inside the kitchen, tears streamed down Yaso's face. The one thing she had not heard in her husband's voice was surprise.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: I'm in a hurry again, too much of a hurry to properly express myself after such a long absence. Let me please, then summarize with my most heartfelt apologies for the lateness. Bird in Hand was likely most of the way toward abandoned, if I can admit to that. However, the other day, I checked my email account for my account, and I saw all these reviews and messages from people who were still reading, despite my own lack of updating.

I cannot name you all, but it is for you and because of you that this story continues. You have my thanks, and also more of my words.

This chapter is fairly short, but it's time to get the ball rolling again on this story. Please enjoy.

-Murasaki

The rain was dying down by the time he found her down at the stream, kneeling at its edge, cupping the cool water in her hands. The water was low in the streambed, and her kimono was soaked in mud halfway down. The look in her eyes was blank, and water ran down the front of her kimono. Her hair was drenched from the rain and had fallen in disarray. Her feet were slathered in mud and she was shivering from the coolness in the air following the storm.

Looking at her- she seemed to not yet notice his presence, although he was standing just nearby, a true testament to how shaken she was- Saitou Hajime felt something stir within him. For a moment, he felt a little dizzy. The wild wolf inside of him howled to curl up at the back of this woman and watch over her, keep her safe from predators. The wolf- the man- both of them, were sick of hiding what fleeting moments he and Tokio had. He had promised her, the words he once had spoken rushing to his ears, "I will not forsake you," and all to what? What was this path that he had chosen for both of them? Tokio could be happily married- well, distractedly married, anyway- by now, with a household of her own, struggling to get by as they all were, but she would be safe- she would have a family.

He should have given her up long ago, he realized. He ought to have, the day of his wedding. For a moment he was lost in awe of the strangeness of fate- he had been swept around, trying to stay out of trouble, trying to avoid those who would have his life or hold him accountable, who would end his mission before it even began. Above all, he believed in living- not for himself, not anymore.

Okita Souji, smiling, slipped into his head, one moment frozen in time, and startled him. Then he was gone again, the memories of his life temporarily slipping through Saitou's fingers much as Okita's life had before, as he held his friend... And fighting had gone by, and troubled times, and a lost wolf-man had gone where he was bid to go, and he had ended up at an acquaintance's house, Kurasawa Heijiemon- a distant acquaintance, but just enough of a connection to allow himself to impose upon their resources in cleaner conscience- and there- there he had found her.

"You'll live to old age, Saitou-san. You're too damn stubborn to not grow old and be crawled upon by your own children." Okita's voice, from a conversation not two months before he had died, came clearly to him through time. Okita had been so wistful, quiet, at peace with his own existence, a peace Saitou had never found. Despite his desire never to admit that his friend was, in fact, right, he suddenly realized it was something very much along the line to what he wanted. If what he wanted had any say in the entire farce of the world that currently controlled his life, he would want a peaceful home in the city, with his own sons, a place he could control. He wanted it with Tokio. He wanted to take them both away, and give her a life worth living.

But he was married to Yaso- Yaso, who would, like as not, never bear him any children, Yaso who would die sometime in the next few years. He was here in Tonami, and because of his wife's poor health, would probably end up establishing himself here when times were better. Tokio would grow old, trying to wait as he kept his promise, ever in limbo as her love for him bound her and clipped her wings.

"I don't want this," he said aloud. For a moment, he didn't realize that it had escaped his lips, until he saw Tokio start with the realization that he was there, and what he had just said. "Tokio, I don't want this for us."

Tokio stayed very still, her heart beating so horribly fast from her fear and from his words- terror and hope, colliding together, becoming too intense for one person to reasonably be able to bear on her own. She heard him come closer, and kneel nearby her. For him to speak so baldly about he did and did not desire- she did not, could not, know what he meant by it.

Shakily, she got to her feet, swaying, but standing on her own. Her socks slipped a little in the mud, but she otherwise held her ground. Perhaps she thought of running- later, she would be unable even to explain to herself what had happened.

Determined not to give up, Saitou Hajime, ex-Shinsengumi member and well known unsociable wolf, his knees sunk into the mud of the streambed, walked forward on his knees toward her. Once he slipped a little in the scummy mud. Mutely, she turned her head, and watched him approach her. Her eyes were not blank now, but instead filled with so many colliding emotions that he could no more read them than he might've been able to before.

By her side at last, he took her wet hand in both of his, and brought it to his forehead, feeling her cool skin on the warmth of his face. She did not move away, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Tokio stared out once again over the stream and into the forest on the other side, her heart in her chest feeling unbelievably fragile. Watching Hajime walk on his knees through the mud and wetness, without a care for his own image, had stripped away her defences. In the way his thumbs dragged gently across her skin she realized, painfully, that he was drinking this in, that he needed this, needed her, more than he needed to breathe.

There was too much that needed to be said, and it was bottled up so that none could come out. Reality beckoned for her to meet this situation with all her wits, but she could only drift as an errant leaf on the waters of the stream. The silent moments stretched on.

"I shall arrange it so that your wife may continue her kitchen duties in the Ueno residence," Tokio said harshly, so sudden that it surprised him. She was as still as stone- nothing was going to surprise her now, and nothing was going to shock her. "I will tell Kurasawa-san that she and I have had our irreconcilable differences. You will no longer be welcome in the Kurasawa residence. You will make your wife understand and obey whatever I decide to do to accomplish this. The Uenos will have more space for your wife, which will be needed as her illness progresses. I will live at the Kurasawa residence as the cook until they may find another- the Ueno cook will have to help your wife- and I will make my preparations to return to Tokyo. I will leave in the spring of next year."

"Tokio-," he barked.

"No," she insisted, pulling her hand away. "No. This has gone on for long enough. If I continue to wait in love for you, I beggar myself to an insane woman." Looking upon the wolf's face for a moment, her gaze softened, but then her eyes again became blank. "No," she said again, to herself, "I care not."

Saitou Hajime knelt in the mud alone and watched her walk away.

"But- whatever can you mean, Tokio-chan?" Kurasawa Keiko asked her, an air of confusion quite evident on her face. Tokio was helping her to undress that evening, and was explaining to her the situation as best as she could. Tokio, for her part, only felt a strange coldness where her heart ought to have been- it gave her emotionless power, but made it feel as if reality was one step farther away than she could reasonably manage. "Irreconciliable differences? Surely you were great companions."

For a moment, Tokio thought of explaining everything to her adopted mother, but turned away from it. "I am afraid I cannot divulge the nature of our dispute. It would be a disservice to the Fujita family. By mutual agreement, the Fujitas are making arrangements to move elsewhere."

Keiko sat in thought for a moment. "Fujita-san has been so dedicated in watching over you, Tokio-chan. Perhaps we can ask the Uenos to take them in again?" She hesitated a moment, "And if there has been great disservice done, you know that we may bring it before Heijiemon. We want to take care of you, Tokio-chan."

Tokio shook her head, and prepared to take her leave. "I thank you deeply, however..."

Keiko nodded in reply, wanting to spare her charge unnecessary embarrassment. "We understand and trust your judgement, Tokio-chan. I am sorry for such disappointment. Please, go rest. Tomorrow, we will move the Fujitas."

Tokio bowed low, and from the arch in her back, Keiko realized that the younger woman was exhausted, and her heart went out momentarily for the girl. Heijiemon always accused his wife of being far too sentimental and flighty, even for a woman, and would likely chastise her for it now. Tokio, he would say, was choosing this path for herself. At any point, she could choose to give her life back over into someone else's capable hands, as she ought to, and focus once again on being a woman- not a victim, not someone pushed out of her traditional and rightful role. Keiko knew she was not always the most composed of women, but she knew from one look at the young woman's half-hidden face that Tokio knew all this. That this situation had beggared a proud woman who never thought she would have to negotiate the world as she had.

The situation between the two was strange, and Keiko always had to remember her husband's advice. They were the elders in Tokio's situation, he said, and Keiko should not be intimidated simply because Tokio seemed to better understand the men's world. "Please rise, Tokio-chan," she intoned, trying to keep Heijiemon's advice in her head, while also following her own wisdom. "There was another matter I would like to discuss with you." She waited until Tokio had straightened again, and waited, eyes still at her mistress's feet. "We received a missive two weeks ago from your lady, Teru-hime. She pled that you be given a choice to return to her side in the capital if you so desired. It seems by this time next year, she may have a place for you with herself and her brother."

_Katamori-sama_, Tokio's lips struggled into a small smile, despite herself. Certainly the man was Teru-hime's adopted brother, but he was one of her most famous skeletons in her closet. Immediately, however, her mind was turned back to her mistress. "She has written to me the same thing, Kurasawa-san."

"Surely you have seen enough upheaval, Tokio-chan," Keiko continued. Tokio heard the wind kick up again a little outside, sending the last of the rain pattering against the rice paper windows. "And you know my husband and I would desire you stayed with us, so that we could give you a life here. Certainly Teru-hime, blessed as she is, cannot offer you such stability as we offer. We know you miss her terribly, but please, consider our offer to you carefully. Who would best be able to provide for you?"

Tokio felt a chill at the very base of her back, along her spine, but managed to conceal having felt the sensation. "Please allow me to contemplate the best way to be as a daughter to you, Kurasawa-san," she entreated, bowing again, "for certainly that is what I am. There is certainly no denying it now. However," she paused. There was something else in the wind outside, and although her brow furrowed, she could not pursue that thought further, "You and Kurasawa-san, my master, understand my delicate predicament. I am no longer the simple woman that I was. If I may reconcile myself to the lifestyle you offer, to the healthiness of letting yourselves determine my fate, then I would be most pleased to accept the mantle of being your daughter. But if I cannot, I would require myself to remove from your presence and your care, and live my life as... a damaged woman, I suppose, with those who could care for me in that way- the Matsudairas."

The words hung in the air between them, dangerous in their nuances. If Tokio could become an upstanding member of the new era and the new Meiji government, she would live a peaceful life in Tonami, surrounded once again by a family. Heijiemon would bestow upon her the name of his family line- Kurasawa Tokio.

Tokio bowed a last time. "I will give you my answer by the melting of the snows next year, Kurasawa-san. Until then, I hope to honorably serve you, so that either way, I will not shame you in my time here. Begging your leave, Kurasawa-san?"

Keiko sighed. "Of course. Goodnight, Tokio-chan. Sleep well. I will see you in the morning."

"Sleep well, Kurasawa-san." Tokio clacked the door shut behind her, leaving her alone on the engawa with the last sprinkles of the rain and the darkness.

Or, perhaps not so alone. Immediately, she felt his eyes upon her, from the engawa by the only other lit room- the Fujita quarters. He did not moved, only watched. Still, she had the impression he had heard every word she exchanged with Kurasawa-san. Despite her confusion over her adoptive family, that alone filled her with sudden ire. It was not difficult to overhear the happenings of any of the sleeping and dwelling rooms, but to do so was to show a very definite lack of respect for the people giving the wolf-man house and home.

She would have to walk right past him to get to the women's quarters, she realized, as he rather intended to, unless she desired to get wet and muddy walking through the courtyard. For a moment, she considered it, but she knew her kimono wouldn't dry out before the next day, with the dampness of the air. Instead, Tokio nodded once, slowly, and squared her shoulders.

The demon-gold eyes followed her around the engawa, as she deliberately took small, measured steps as she'd been taught as a child. Certainly he would not try anything untoward on the engawa. She had made it clear she no longer desired his intentions and he would not risk being seen by others.

He almost let her pass by, and then in his best Fujita Goro voice, asked politely, "Takagi-san, rumor has it you are returning south after the end of the year?" Saitou Hajime smirked when her face showed a sudden confused, panicked look- obviously her thoughts had been with him acting as an ex-Shinsengumi captain. He thrived for moments like these- almost as good as running into that vegetable seller from his old hometown. Even better- at that moment, one of the women opened the shoji screen a little ways down the engawa, on a late-evening well or outhouse run. She smiled and bowed slightly at the two as she hurried by. Instead of unleashing her scathing remark, Tokio was forced to revise her words, and smiled politely.

"Good evening, Fujita-san. It is uncertain at the moment, whether I shall stay with my newfound family here, or answer the summons of my lady Matsudaira Teru-hime in Tokyo." Even the eyes, to her chagrin and confusion, suddenly looked as uncomplicated and harmless as a Goro- nothing like a wolf's, except for their unusual color.

"Ah, Tokyo," the innocent man mused, "I visited there once- the trip of a lifetime for a poor boy like myself." Rocking back on the engawa a little, he resettled into a more comfortable position. "Very beautiful there, in its way. I always found the countryside to be much more appealing, though. Understand the crops better than all those city people."

For a moment, he was so good, she was almost fooled. A child, running back to stay in the children's quarters, trampled unconsiderately past them. For a moment, in the rain-freshened, cooled air, she could almost believe that he was a farmer turned warrior, looking back to a home that would have long since been ruined by war. For just a brief moment, she could say, "I wish you luck in your future, Fujita-san," and mean it to Fujita Goro.

And then his eyes turned piercing as they met her, and for a moment they had that look of the wolf in a man's body, the same hungry and powerful look Saitou Hajime had whenever he had just finished kissing her. Laced within that look was unbridled yearning, and, to her surprise, deep unhappiness.

"I may be able to leave this place tomorrow," he murmured so lowly that she found herself bending forward to hear what he had to say, "But in my mind, I will never be able to leave your side. Your face, your body, your memory shall be my constant companion for the rest of my days."

And for just that moment, she was struck entirely speechless, and knew her eyes flashed the same yearning as his did. It took her entire willpower to only incline her head slightly, letting her eyes say everything she could not say aloud. "Goodnight, Fujita-san."

He smiled a little- the innocent farmer was back. "Goodnight, Takagi-san. My wife and I are moving on the morrow. Thank you for your kind help to us."

"And thank you," she replied, confused as to if she was thanking the simple warrior-farmer, or the ex Shinsengumi captain, second-to-none killer, "for keeping watch over me."

He made as if to tip his hat, were that he had one, and she swept off again down the engawa.


End file.
